Davidson set to referee her first Pro14 match
She has been let down by coronavirus and the weather since January, but Scottish referee Hollie Davidson expects to take charge of her first men’s professional match tomorrow.
The 28-year-old from Aboyne has been appointed to officiate at Thomond Park where Munster take on Benetton in the Guinness Pro14. It is a match that has already been postponed twice, so the Scot will be hoping for third time lucky.
Davidson was supposed to take charge of the Newcastle Falcons v Castres Challenge Cup clash in January but missed out when that tournament was put on hold due to Covid-19 concerns.
She was then assigned the Pro14 match between Glasgow Warriors and Benetton last month, but that was called off due to a frozen pitch.
Assuming the match at Thomond Park does go ahead, both the referee and television match official roles will be filled by females for the first time in top-tier men's professional rugby. Former Irish international Joy Neville is the designated TMO.
Davidson is the a product of the Guinness Pro14’s referee pathway and follows in the footsteps of Neville in becoming the second female official to take charge of a match.
She playing scrum-half for Scotland at under-20 level before setting her sights on becoming a referee and reached that milestone in 2017 as Scotland’s first fulltime female match official.
She was selected at the Women’s Rugby World Cup Sevens in 2017, Commonwealth Games and Rugby World Cup Sevens in 2018 and Women’s Six Nations in 2019 and 2020, in addition to numerous appointments as an assistant referee in the Guinness Pro14.
Greg Garner, the Pro14 referee manager, said: “Our elite referee pathway has greatly improved in recent years and it is very rewarding to see Hollie earn the right to make her debut this Friday after the disappointmentofthepostponement a few weeks ago.
“Andy Macpherson, Tappe Henning and their team at Scottish Rugby have played a huge role in putting Hollie into this position and ensuring she was given the right opportunities to progress.”
Jamie Ritchie expects Italy to come out “all guns blazing” at Murrayfield on Saturday, and therefore thinks it vital that Scotland get off to a good start themselves.
Gregor Townsend’s side did anything but that against Ireland last weekend, despite the usual calls from captain Stuart Hogg for an 80-minute performance. But Scotland forward Ritchie is confident that the team can recover from the disappointment of that 27-24 defeat to get their Six Nations campaign back on track, despite the fact that they have only six days between the two games instead of the usual full week.
“With it being a short turnaround we haven't got as much time to prepare for what they're coming with,” the Edinburgh flanker accepted. “But our foundations are in place to build upon, and that will be the most important thing come the weekend.
“Italy always target the game against us as a big one, so I think they'll be coming out all guns blazing. They're always a threat, so for us it's a massive opportunity to show we can get out in front earlier and hopefully that will lead on to a win.”
Like any professional side, Italy certainly present a physical challenge, although the description of them as “always a threat” has not really been borne out by their results to date. They lost by 50 points to 10 to France in their opening fixture, conceded 41 then 48 points to England and Ireland respectively, then last week lost another 48 points as Grand Slam hopefuls Wales swatted them aside. So
it could be argued that Scotland not only need to win, but win well, to regain some of the credibility they lost in losing to the Welsh and Irish. However, Ritchie does not think the team are under any pressure to run up a big score, and believes that a simple win will set them up well for the more daunting challenge of France next week in Paris.
“I don’t think the fact that they’ve had a certain amount
of points scored against them creates pressure for us. The only pressure that will come from that is they’ll be looking to get something out of this tournament.
“So they’ll see this game as an opportunity to come at us. That is the only pressure that will come from the situation. We’ll just be looking to win the game, as we do every week.
“We’ve still got two games left, so there’s nothing to say we
can’t finish at the higher end of the table. Yeah we’ve had a couple of close results but we’ve still taken a couple of bonus points from those games.
“If we win these next two games, that could be vital. There’s no reason why we can’t win these next two games and get back on track.”
If Scotland do beat Italy and France to add to their historic win at Twickenham, it would go down, statistically at least,
as one of their better tournament performances. Nonetheless, Ritchie believes the ability of the squad means that a three-out-of-five win record has to be seen as an underachievement. “I think it will still be a missed opportunity in the last two games,” he concluded. “But you can’t look back, you can only look forward. These games are gone: you can’t get them back now. So it’s on to the next two.”