3/8/2009 Naval Academy Women @ USMA Women (West Point)

First off, the Anderson Rugby Complex (West Point) is the best rugby facility I have EVER played or refereed at - and I played a year in Auckland, New Zealand. They have a turf field, a regular field, a gym, a referees locker room, home/away locker rooms, and various conference rooms for post game functions. The grass field can be seen from from all of the conference rooms, and there is also a balcony and bleachers to watch the games on the grass field. Not only that, the back drop to the field is the hudson river......Amazing.

Now this game was a reality check, these women really caught me off guard and it showed. I don't have a lot of experience refereeing upper level women's teams....I came to the game with the approach of a lower level women's game, which did not work. It was rough from the get go since I was of the attitude that I should let the little things go at the breakdown to keep the game going....but these women were good and if I wasn't communicating they began to happily infringe while I was just thinking they were ignorant innocent pretty ladies...how wrong was I. After getting hit with the ball once and almost tripping a few times I started to really get the point - this game is requiring me to focus and these women are the real deal.

Unfortunately I had already set the loose standard for the breakdown area and struggled to recover to control the breakdown effectively. It mostly lead to confusion because I had let certain infringements go before I started to penalise them. In sum, I felt I had a hard time evaluating the breakdowns - a combination of different game conditions contribute to how women form differently. It seemed the ladies became isolated a lot easier - ripping the ball from a players grasp during a tackle was commonplace, and support was typically slow to arrive in rucks, which resulted in a lot of players moving to play the ball immediately, going to ground near it and other players on the ground. There were a number of instances where ladies were not rolling away, the ball somehow got caught in somebody's legs, somebody fell over for no apparent reason.....just overall sloppy.

As the game wore on, however, I think I started to pick up the groove and pick out the true infringements from the sloppiness. Something I picked out as critical to the breakdowns was the binding, it seemed a lot of women had a tendency to just blast straight in without a bind, typically resulting in the ruck totally collapsing and a truly dangerous situation. This problem, as it persisted, resulted in a yellow card to the Navy captain for dangerous side entry (actually resulting in an injury to her own teammate). Overall Army proved to be the more legally aggressive side at the breakdown, successfully driving over and turning over the rucks. This, however, was the only part of the game Army was winning, as they were getting blown out in the set pieces out wide by Navy. I guess this just shows how important possession and the breakdown is.

This was the second game in two weeks decided by a conversion kick on full time....only on this occasion the comeback team won (Army). 22-20 final score. It was pretty emotional for the ladies involved.

Now, from a refereeing standpoint, my primary concern for this game was the scrums. They were being wheeled regularly - I was searching for that pulling front rower, but I simply could not spot the pull, so I could not penalise. I need some help in spotting this. In saying that, this game was video taped....a valuable tool for the scrum and evaluating my true TV presence....something I was trying to improve this game. Only thing is, I thought I had a horrible game...I don't want to see all the marginal forward passes and infringements that I missed...since I am sure there was A LOT!

Here is a link to the match report on the nerfu website: http://www.nerugbyrefs.org/schedules/match_report.cfm?match_id=4079

I will post the video to this blog once I recieve it.

2/28/2009 Harvard @ University of Connecticut

In the first game of the New England season University of Connecticut welcomed Harvard for 3 30 minute periods of rugby - the first two making up a typical game and third being for the newbies (B side).

Don Morrison also came down from Worcester to coach/evaluate my refereeing, which turned out to be extremely valuable.

For this game I set about to work on my scrum infringement recognition, my positioning, and my control of the breakdown with respect to players keeping their feet.

From Don, I will steal the match report:

The halves were 30 minutes in duration. The game started out with Harvard demonstrating better skills than UConn. More specifically, early in the game UConn really struggled in their first-time venture (practice or otherwise) to the great outdoors of late winter in New England. As the game progressed, UConn began to get rhythm. They established dominance in forward play, especially at rucks, and thus they provided their backs with ample opportunity to attack. However, the transition from forwards to back (i.e. scrumhalf) was severely deficient. Equally important, or perhaps even more so, was the deficiency of UConn’s kicker for goals and for touch. Suffice to say, UConn lacked a couple of skilled positions or they would have easily dominated this game once they got the cobwebs out of their winter hiatus. Harvard was very good at capitalizing on their moments, and their kicker for conversion attempts was brilliant. Harvard deservedly won this closely contested game.

It should be added, UCONN scored their last try on full time to make the score 20-21, they missed the conversion....very close game.

Now, to hit on my goals for the day, there is a lot of discuss, but I want to hit the major stuff:

• Positioning - by and large I improved in this department as the game progressed, as indicated by my eval. Don mentioned at half time that the players were fringing, from my saddle position I had assumed these were marginal, and was communicating to the players to take a step, but since I was in the saddle position, I could not get convince them to take a step back. In the 45 degree position, however, the players would respond immediately (smart players....it is harvard after all).
• Scrummage Infringements - unfortunately the teams did not provide me much of a challenge.
• Breakdown management - per Don's eval, I managed this pretty well. There were a few infringements where I called hands in the ruck where it should have been side entry / killing to the other team. Just need more games to develop my imagery.

I also have the eval for my records, which presents every aspect of the in great detail.

B Side game:

I first went over the scrum engagement again, just to check, since many of the players were new to the scrum. It proved important as one player had a real tendency to have his head below his hips and not bind properly. I corrected him there, but I had to give him a bit more attention during the game, fortunately no penalties. My initial shock in refereeing this period was the serious difference in game knowledge between these newbies and the A side. Essentially every player was coming to the ruck and losing their feet immediately, coming in the side, and well in front of the last foot. I tried my best to communicate the infringements – but I think the players were simply ignorant to their sins. I would penalize if it had a real material effect – such as a turnover or offsides, but I tried to keep the game going as best I could. About 7 minutes in I had a chat with the captains to reiterate my points, gave them a list of 3 things to tell their teams “Last foot, Keep your feet, come in through the gate – I want to keep the game going but we have got to keep it safe” This approach seemed to have effect for a few minutes, but after that they resorted to their original habits.

2/14/2009 Raleigh B v. Fort Bragg

I went down for Raleigh, NC last weekend for a visit. When my older brother realized I was in town, and he had no referee assigned for his club's game, he asked me to officiate - mainly so he didn't have to do it. At any rate, I was happy to get a run in, considering my next game will be Mid-March (St. Paddy's Day in Savannah).

Fort Bragg is a D3 men's club, Raleigh is the 2007 D2 National Champion and is in the D1 playoffs this year - a mismatch as I'm sure you can imagine. The final scoreline, 67-5, was certainly not flattering to Fort Bragg, but considering the quality of opposition and how I have seen Bragg play in the past, I thought they did well as they blooded a few new players (front rowers) and had a numbers of other players waiting on the sideline aching to get into the mix.

A few notes on my performance in the game:

• My fitness is not where I thought it was.

I found myself much farther behind play than I used to be, maybe Crossfit (which I recently joined) is not doing what I thought it would for my running fitness, or maybe my rehabbing ankle had not been on a proper run for awhile. Maybe I was letting my thoughts slow me down as it had been awhile since my last game so I was debating my decisions more with myself....cant be sure, the reason I was behind is probably a combination of all three and the only solution is to referee more games (and maybe run more).

• Scrummage Infringement recognition improved.

This maybe have been due to the inexperience of the Bragg front rowers, but I spotted Raleigh coming in early a number of times, foot up, but no non straight feeds (I warned the halfback). I even had the halfbacks kick the ball back into the scrum twice...NUTS!

• One dangerous tackle

I had an upending tackle in the first minutes of the game and I responded with a loud intimidating whistle and chat with the offending captain (no card). No more foul play / high tackles for the rest of the game. I guess I showed where I stood pretty well....

• Halfback unhappy with my positioning

While refereeing the breakdown, I first take a position close to the ruck (behind, mobile) to find the ball, see that is won and usually retreat to the saddle and check the offsides. The Raleigh halfback, however, complained I was always blocking his line of sight to his flyhalf in my first position - effecting the game since he can't get vision before he passes the ball the second time he looks. I can see where the player is coming from, but the main thing I conclude from this criticism is that I was not varying my position enough. Or he was just a moaner.

• For the first time as a referee, I got knocked over this game - in a swinging tackle, it swung in a direction I did not expect, right by the goal line. Fortunately I regained my feet and was in position for the try a few seconds later. I figured I would be hearing a lot about my stumble after the game, but the only person who seemed to notice was my girlfriend (#1 fan).
• My brother scored a try.

12/06/2008 Toys for Tots Tournament, Charleston, SC

The week before this tournament was my last week of University before graduation, requiring the presentation of my senior projects and other such matter. In an unexpected event my team won 2nd place in the senior design competition for our tape measure and tool used to manufacture it (pictured). We were to win several hundred dollars but were also required to attend the awards ceremony. The awards were set to be given the night before this tournament in Raleigh (4 plus hours from Charleston, SC where the rugby tournament was located). I was the leader of the senior design team, obliged to attend.

Friday night also happened to be the "Hillsborough Hike," the traditional drinking challenge for graduating seniors from nc state - drinking a beer at every establishment along hillsborough street, which I was also obliged to partake in.

In sum, it was a challenge to wake up that saturday morning and cruise the 4 plus hour drive to charleston to referee my first game at 11 AM. As I arrived (at 11 am, on time) I discovered the teams (Citadel Women and Charleston Women) had already taken the field, fully kitted up and ready to go, waiting for me. So I rushed to the field, loaded up with my whistle and scorecard ready to go, sat down to tie my boots and SNAP - my left shoe lace split. Referees cannot be late, my boots are too small anyway, I took the field and started the game, one shoe totally untied. I remedied the problem at half time with my spare shoe laces. 

I refereed the following games:

Charleston Hurricanes v. Citadel Women

Columbia v. Citadel Men

Citadel B v. College of Charleston B

The most interesting event of the day was in the Columbia v. Citadel game, a "cavalry charge." 

First of all, the field was poorly lined, some white lines and some blue lines - used for soccer, track and field, and now rugby. As a player the try line was particularly confusing, there was a very faint white line about 2 meters beyond the actual try line (blue) - throughout the day I had a number of different players score to the white line instead of the actual try line.

At any rate, Citadel was awarded a penalty 5-10 meters out for hands in the ruck. They formed up for a tap and go in a "flying wedge" formation. The players began their run before the quick tap so I prepared to call the cavalry charge.....only for the scrumhalf (taking the quick tap) to pass to his flyhalf and not to any of the players running in the "wedge." The Columbia captain however, immediately protested, all of his players stopped playing, the citadel flyhalf then cut back inside through the wedge OVER THE TRYLINE.....but he was trying to reach the fake one, he was stopped and formed a "maul" (though a maul cannot exist in-goal) (the columbia captain still whining about the cavalry charge). A citadel player then dropped the ball to ground behind him, one his scrumhalf came up behind him and picked the ball up from the ground in the tryzone...I awarded the try....

In sum, maybe I should have stopped play when the flyhalf stepped back inside to the "wedge" of player congestion for accidental offsides...scrum to columbia....but columbia should really just respond to my whistle and not what infringements they think they see.....

I thought this day was an improvement over the some of the previous weekends when taking into to consideration my interpretation of offsides and positioning (still primarily in the saddle), but the Columbia coach said I was missing a lot of offsides from the position....but on the same token, I dont think it's really worth calling those truly marginal offsides calls...it's mainly important the players are just respecting a line around their last foot....

11/22 UNCC v. Davidson, UNCC B v. Belmont

1:00 PM UNC Charlotte B v. Belmont Barbarians

In the morning prior to my arrival at the pitch there

 was a high school game played between two schools from low-income Charlotte areas playing a great game of rugby. It's great to see high school rugby being so successful in North Carolina.

My first game of the day was Belmont v. UNC Charlotte B. Belmont is a club newly formed just south of Charlotte. They are going through their first year of games. The only special note I have from the game is that one of the Belmont scrumhalves tried to pull a fast one on me, faking the ball coming out of the scrum - I had not had anybody try to do that in one of my games before.

Belmont wrote this match report for the game. As a referee it's always satisfying to hear that a game was well played and everyone had a great time:

http://belmontrfc.wordpress.com/

Belmont went to UNCC with a purpose and it showed. From the start of the game Belmont layed hard hits and used their power and speed to hamer the young kids of charlotte. Belmont played a complete game.they destroyed uncc in the scrums dr

iving them back off the ball and pushing back down the field. Rucking was a little slow at first, but then the Barbos started hit the rucks strong which really killed any chance of uncc making a play. Our strong point saturday was without a doubt the backline. They held strong on defense and contained the young speed on uncc with ease. On offense they drove up the field beautifuly passing the ball back and forth like pros. This was by far the best game the Barbos have played yet. The flow of the game was great and everyone did their job, and did it well. We now have completed a great feat we finished our fall with a .500 record. Great job guys that is a feat that other clubs who have been around 7 or 8 years have yet to do.  Our 

Man of the Match was of course Henny. Henny you will be missed on the pitch. We better still see you around the club. Thanks for all the hard play and instruction we appreciate everything.

3:00 PM UNC Charlotte v. Davidson

I did not expect to have a lot of difficulty with this game - but my ankle/fitness sure did having just ran that full game. These boys were hitting a lot harder than I expected them too, but the game was overall rather clean with your typical D3 college men issues at the breakdown. I feel I let the coaches influence me a little too much in this game, actually listening to the sideline moaning a little too much and I think it may have affected my game, which is unfortunate.

UNC Charlotte ended up winners, but only after a lengthy break following a serious looking head injury where the game was stopped for over 30 minutes for a player to be stretchered off. The player simply caught the shoulder of the Davidson player he was trying to tackle....a hooker with a low center of gravity and plenty of momentum.

At any rate, I wonder waht the result would have been had there not been the long break for UNC Charlotte, the more experienced side, to catch their breath during the injury break. Prior to the break the game was drawn, leading to a final 10 minutes where Charlotte managed to run in a couple of tries.

11/8 UNC Greensboro v. Triad Rugby Club

I'm writing this post too far from when I actually did this game.

I recall it being a very close, I was rather liberal with my breakdown laws considering the friendly and lower level nature of the game. UNC-G ended up pulling off the win with a try at the end of the game.

One major incident I recall from the game is when there was a broken wrist, play stopped, player totally capable of removing himself from the field, no head injuries, nothing. Campus Rec officer, however, insists the paramedics must be called and the player cannot leave the field, paramedics show up and allow him to walk to the ambulance, but then instead of taking a ride in an ambulance the player simply has his friend drive him to the emergency room to have his hand looked at.

20 minutes later, play resumed with about 10 to go.

11/7 Davidson v. Charlotte Socials

Following last weekend's debacle with my whistle, I set out to try and not blow it so much this time - failing miserably.

The stage was set, Friday night:

Davidson, a team who had just started playing rugby, none of the team members had played more than a handful of games in their lifetime.

vs.

Charlotte Socials, a team in their twilight years of rugby, out to inflict dirty tricks on a bunch of young ambitious rugby players. There were also a number of Charlotte super league players in the mix as their game the following day was cancelled (Washington RFC).

I should have realized before it was not going to be easy.

I had not refereed any of the charlotte socialite players before (aside from a few at 7s), so they were unfamiliar with my style and immediately set out to test my tolerance levels - both in actual play and how much they could talk to me, after all, all of these guys were at least 10 years older than myself, in some cases probably 30 years. The Charlotte Socialites were coming at me from all directions, breaking every subtle law they could, barking at me about every call, moaning, walking, and having beer breaks on the sideline. To Davidson's credit, they put up a very good match for these old men, using their youthful pace and athleticism to bowl through them and score some very good breakaway tries.

In the end, Charlotte came out winners of a close game, I think it was about 24-20 or something around there. 

Despite all the barking, the socialites did pick up on a few errors I made, letting me know in exuberant fashion, including a strange situation:

Socialite player makes a typical HORRIBLE chip kick, he might have been able to do these 20 years ago, but I think age caught up with this guy. At any rate, an ignorant Davidson player decides to "volleyball" hit this ball on the descent of the kick (making it not a charge down, which is what I'm guessing the davidson player thought it was). I call knock on advantage charlotte, at which point a davidson player claims the ball on the ground - advantage over - scrum charlotte. As it turns out, Davidson player was in front of the knock on...making it OFFSIDES, penalty to charlotte, error by me, never to be made again.

Overall, the game was not a fun experience with all the abuse, but I learned a lot from dealing with these older guys trying to pull one over on me. At the post game social I had a lot of compliments from the Davidson side (probably because I penalized charlotte so much, rightfully so).