7/17/2009 Charity 7s

This is an annual 7s tournament hosted by the Raleigh Vipers benefit charity in Raleigh, NC. The tournament also coincided with my 23rd birthday this year.....so I decided to go home, visit my girlfriend, my parents, and all my old rugby friends.

Many old teammates from the Vipers were there, as were teammates from my university club, NC State.
It was a well staffed event, each referee only having to officiate 4 games.

Some interesting moments:

I was knocked over in one game....I think it was UNC v. Sir Walter Raleigh. I got straight back to my feet but I'm glad I didn't turn out like this ref:


I also had a QF end in a tie...thankfully we went straight to sudden death overtime...I didn't want to have to host ANOTHER penalty kick shootout!

The tournament organizer, knowing how far I traveled and my level of refereeing, made the decision to award me the tournament final....ECU v. Sir Walter Raleigh (a raleigh team).

It was a close game, but Raleigh's experience proved too much for ECU's pace. The strangest refereeing moment I recall in the game was when a ball flew vertically (about 30-40 feet) from a player's grasp. The ball was punched from a raleigh player's grasp....something I had never really seen before. I deemed it a knock on by Raleigh and told the ECU player to tackle not punch the ball....is this the right decision? It just seemed like such a strange action to me.

7/11/2009 Acton 10s

A lot of the same as Springfield, a good social tournament.

I remember my first game of the day was a ladies motley green (springfield) v. motley green (middlesex)! fun stuff! I recall calling a knock on only for it to have actually been a girl on the other team...dont know if I should have done this....but I hadnt signalled for the knock yet so I upgraded it to a penalty when I realized she was offside!

I also had my first experience with Boston Irish Wolfhounds, playing against Newport Riptide. I recall trying to get the #5 to roll away, clearly communicating it and awarding penalty advantage. Unfortunately, he got up, rolling away, but then elected to pick the ball up from the wrong side of the ruck! I was amazed! a flagrant professional foul I thought and deserved of a card. I'm not sure what the right decision was, but I ended up not carding the player and just gave him a stern talking to. My problem with what is a normal penalty in this case was that it was obviously intentional, there was absolutely no grey area or possiblity to misunderstand, it was flagrant. At any rate, BIW totally outclassed the other side anyway to win.

Another interesting moment of the day was the tournament final, where the referee with about 2-3 minutes to go RED CARDED (SENT OFF) a BIW player for backchat. According to the referee, it was only going to be a yellow for a consistent "your useless ref!" but when the referee requested the BIW player talk to him, the BIW told the referee "NO! your a bloody plonker!" at which point, the yellow was upgraded to red. Following this, Mystic River came out winners of what turned out to be a very entertaining final.

Also, kudos to the tournament organizer. He did an excellent job. The fields though...they were short and narrow with misaligned posts...nevertheless, it was a social tournament and a good time.

6/27/2009 Springfield 7s

This was a very fun day of 7s. I always enjoy 7s tournaments because it's a great opportunity to see many of your fellow referees, see the referee team picture above!

I don't have lot of notes from the games but I do recall that at this tournament, all three fields shared in-goal areas with each other. Well, the middle field shared both ingoal areas, the other two just shared the middle. Amazing.

As far as I know, no problems were had with this, but I was still surprised to see SHARED ingoal areas.

I recall that my first game had no penalties, something I was pretty happy about.

I had the opportunity to referee the Open final at this tournament, South Shore v. Boston 2. It was a repeat of the final from Worcester 7s, with the same winner, South Shorre.

6/20/2009-6/21/2009 Pittsburgh U-19 NASC

This tournament was a tough decision for me, and will add to this post as time goes on.

At the last minute I decided to take a day of vacation from work and make the 8 hour drive to Pittsburgh for the East Coast u19 Challenge...all star teams from all the local area unions up the east coast.

I had never been yelled at more before in my whole career refereeing. It was absolutely appalling to me, but when you referee higher levels you are expected to be perfect.

I could write and write about errors I made, especially I have videos of two of my games thanks to bill burch http://www.lineoutvideo.com/.

I had tried to apply many of the NERFU tourney evaluator's tips, but my only resolution to that is I was not ready to. I was stressed out about missing work and attending this tournament at such short notice, It all affected me and I just dont feel like I refereed well....as I already said...especially after seeing the video.

Looking back on the games I had some just plain wrong calls. I never had a win/loss effect on a game, but I really question some of my 50/50 gray area calls. If there's anything to take away from this tournament I think it is to establish my standard firmly from the start in non-consequential positions (feed, bridging v. collapse, foot up, etc.). It's not a fond memory of the weekend.

Despite my perceived poor performances, the tournament assignors gave me a great game on Sunday, the u-17 final, MetNY v. N Ohio. I had ARs for this game but for w/e reason I defended all of my decisions when they were really giving me good advice from the sidelines...I was just stubborn and insecure of my performances over the weekend.

Enough trashing myself, it was a very valuable experience and a great test. I know where my mistakes were, and know what I want to work on. I met some great referees and made some great new friends, I will see them all at saranac very soon.

6/13/2009-6/14/2009 NRU U-19 Ladies, LAU All Stars

After the two CDYR games I traveled down the to the Albany Knicks field to referee to ladies U19 All star games.

The first game was New England vs. Met NY. Met NY lost some girls the night before to prom duties and injury, barely having a full side. New England ran away with this game easily.

The second game of the day was New England v. NYS. This was a very competitive game, I was impressed with many of these girl's athleticism. New England eventually ran out winners, I think the score was 20-10.

I unfortunately started to experience bad overuse pain my right leg. I tried some rehab on saturday without much success, I tried refereeing on sunday, but for the first time ever, forfeited my game about halfway through to another referee.

New England were eventual comprehensive winners of the tournament.

6/13/2009 CDYR Tournament

To start with a side note, I made the times union! this is from back in April when I did these girls first game of rugby. http://blog.timesunion.com/youthsports/youth-rugby-kicks-off/708/

This was the first annual Capital District Youth Rugby Tournament. To sum it up, it has been a great pleasure being involved with the development of this league in its third year. I've been able to help coach on occasion and I feel as though I really helped these boys learn rugby through my refereeing.

This tournament did not determine league champion, this was already won by Albany Bulldogs, but was just a tournament culmination with a tournament champion awarded. The tournament was seeded as follows:

1. Albany Bulldogs v. 4. Kingston Rugby
2. Berkshire v. 3. Southern Tier (Binghamton)

The bottom three sides played a round robin: Schenectady, Saratoga, and Rensselaer

Now to my games:

Schenectady 19 -15 Saratoga

I refereed Schenectady three times in total this season, and this game was by far their best. They finally got their 8 man back...he got injured by GLASS on the field at one of the first practices. Oh boy was this kid a bruising ball carrier....everytime he got his hand on the ball Schenectady got on the front foot. This whole team fed off this go forward ball holding on for the win at the end of the game.

Kingston 20 - 22 Albany

This was the 1 v 4 semifinal. This game came down to the wire with Albany scoring a try and conversion on full time for the win. I'm not going to lie, but during the game, I really enjoyed Kingston's style of game. They had a bit more size than Albany (who had A LOT more pace), and used their size to great effect. Taking advantage of the law changes (no maul collapses) Kingston murdered Albany in the set piece. It seemed every line out would get them great go forward ball as they won clean and got a good mauling drive. It also seemed, despite my best management and communication, that Albany could never find the offside line at the maul...seeing Kingston win a number of penalties...kicks to touch..and lineouts. It was a good Second Rows style of game (me, haha).

At any rate, the Kingston smash mouth kind of game eventually wore them down...their fitness showing. Albany came back at the death to win and enter the final.



Now, this was the first of a few championships this season which came down to PENALTY KICKS. I totally disagree with this tie breaker method, it is not representative of a rugby team..FORWARDS DO NOT TRAIN TO KICK THE BALL. It is not appropriate to determine a game winner, there must be another method. It was heinous that Cardiff Blues lost the heineken cup semi this year on kicks, it's just not fair.

Fortunately, I was not there to watch this sour penalty kick affair, as I was sent to referee the NRU U19 Girls All star championship that afternoon and sunday.

5/24/2009 Simsbury 7s

This was my first sevens tournament of 2009, a small (10 teams) get together of high school sides in connecticut and western Massachusetts.

I just purchased a new car (kia soul) before this tournament, so I was eager to take it on a nice drive, and the drive through the Connecticut countryside to historic Simsbury Connecticut (Just west of Hartford), did the trick. (insert pic of kia soul).

I really enjoyed the tournament despite being staffed by only 3 referees: myself, another young guy, and an older fella. The older fella, whom I will not name, decided Sam and I were young, so after he did one game, he resigned the refereeing duties to sam and I, two on, two off….all day long. “Older Fella” enjoyed his Gatorades and the shade, chatting with the area old boys…but sam and I did not complain, we were having fun out there. In all, Sam and I refereed 8 games or so a piece.

The most interesting point of the day was the final, which I was refereeing. I believe it was between the home town boys (Simsbury High) and Cheshire rams. It was a very tight game but late in the first half an incident from earlier in the day wreaked havoc on the game. One of the players had a concussion earlier in the day, and either did no realize it or did not report it. Of no matter, in forming a line out, the player collapsed and began having a seizure/convulsing on the field. It was a scary site and brought to my mind memories of the Longwood incident in VA, where a player did not report a concussion and collapsed after a game…dying two weeks later.

It took sometime for the ambulance to arrive (EMTs were available immediately), but delayed the game substantially. The executive decision was made by the organizers, after such a scary incident, to end the final early with Simsbury in the lead. I am not sure what the organizers decided, but I don’t think a winner was declared.
Beyond the final, this was a great day of rugby, and I hope to find myself there again in the coming seasons.