Former international ref pitches in
Helping fill in for referees shortage in the Hawke’s Bay region
New Zealand Rugby referees boss and former international referee Chris Pollock has made a comeback to help combat a referees shortfall in Hawke’s Bay.
With a couple of runs behind him in a schools under-14 match and sharing the duties in a Hawke’s Bay Magpies wider-squad Anzac Day hitout against Manawatu Turbos in Dannevirke — when he had 40 minutes, just like the players — he got the full 80 minutes.
That was in a second division club match between Bridge Pā and Napier Old Boys Marist on Saturday at the Regional Sports Park in Hastings.
But, even at the age of just 51, it doesn’t signal any ambitious return to the big time, being more something he’ll do if available when home in Hawke’s Bay from the often-travelling job of New Zealand Rugby highperformance referee manager.
“It will help me keep fit, and I’ve said if I’m here I’ll help out,” he said, knowing the opportunities won’t be in short supply.
Pollock in 2013 introduced refcam, with a camera strapped to his head to take telecast viewers even closer to the action in a Super Rugby match between the Waratahs and the Reds in Australia.
He made his return on Saturday to club rugby on a day when the Hawke’s Bay Rugby Referees Association needed to provide referees for 23 matches across three divisions of senior rugby, colts, and women’s rugby.
The aim is to make sure that three qualified officials — a referee and two associate referees (touch judges) — are appointed to each of the five premier-grade games each Saturday.
But the demands more than double from this week with the start of secondary schools rugby, meaning several qualified referees will officiate in two or even three games, with three-official rosters required also for major high school first XV games such as the Super 8 championship starting on May 19.
Magpies squad and Hawke’s Bay Rugby Academy players, some other senior club players, and parents otherwise pick up the slack, mainly in children’s Saturday-morning rugby.
Hawke’s Bay Rugby referee manager Keith Groube says a shortage of referees has been with the game a long time, exacerbated by other individual commitments that take as much as 25-30 per cent out each weekend. But other team sports also use players to fill gaps in refereeing and umpiring rosters, sometimes with a requirement for clubs to put up players for the duties.
New rugby referees are being developed each year, and on Monday more than 20 across the various levels of experience took part in a fortnightly training session.
Both Pollock and Groube encourage players to referee while still in their playing careers, both for better understanding of rules and in hope they will take up refereeing once their playing days are over.
From Taranaki, Pollock moved to Hawke’s Bay as a Hastings Boys’ High School teacher in 2005, in the year he refereed his first international, between Niue and Tahiti, having taken up refereeing after injury encouraged him to end his playing career.
He was part of the referee panel for the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, being an assistant referee in six matches, and in 2012 he refereed a Six Nations match between Ireland and Scotland and a test on Wales’ tour of Australia, which he followed 12 months later with refereeing the first test on the British and Irish Lions tour of Australia and officiating as a touch judge in the remaining two.
He officiated in seven matches in the 2015 World Cup in the UK, as referee in two of the games and including being an assistant referee in the Bronze Final between South Africa and Argentina, his last international, with more than 100 appointments in Super Rugby or Internationals behind him.
He did one more season of Super Rugby, completing 200 games in firstclass rugby.