Academy to develop our referees

Time to grow and rise to another level for our local referees through the new Elite Referees Academy. The academy will be based with the High Performance Unit where the selected referees will be training with players. This was confirmed to SUNsports by High Performance Unit (HPU) general manager Simon Raiwalui.

“The new elite referee’s academy is to bring up the level of referee across the board in the country,” he said.

“The mission of this programme and the referee academy is to create opportunities for our referees in the highest level at Super Rugby, Super W, international tournaments and matches.

“With our players playing in the highest level we need our referees to come up to that level. We will have four referees in the academy that will allow them to grow through exposure part of their job is getting to develop all the referees in the domestic competitions.

“The academy will start with four elite referee we are going to give them the opportunities that players has. That would be fitness, physically, knowledge, experience, exposure and placement. “Hopefully with the progression after a year or two they’ll be moving up to semiprofessional then professional. We have been working very hard with referees it’s been a working progress for the last year.”

Raiwalui said they have been trying to look at opportunities in their mission to develop all areas of the game.

“One of the areas we wanted to upgrade is referee and give opportunities to local refs to gain experience and knowledge. We organised a placement with the Drua which has been very successful. This is the third week, first two weeks was an integration, a bit of a shock to test them physically. They’re going to be with the Drua this week because they will be officiating the preseason match against the Rebels this weekend.”