Depth

[Dave Sherwin]

Had a wonderful weekend refereeing in Cayman at the North America and Caribbean Regional Sevens which were great fun. Ended up getting the ladies cup final (Canada v Mexico) which was great. However, I don't get to ref a lot of sevens and had difficulty throughout the week with my depth behind the defensive line in open play (normal sevens positioning). During USA v Trinidad and Tobago (with a lot of sprinters on the field including Carlin Isles), I intentionally sat a little deeper, but of course this meant an extra pace or two to close up to a tackle. In general I was aiming for 2 to 4 metres behind the defensive line, but refs from some other nations were actually IN the defensive line. To me, this creates a real risk of getting in the way of defensive patterns, especially the shift patterns used at elite level. Would be really interested to hear some thoughts from others on this depth issue.

 

[Phil E]

If you get too deep and there's an interception your fecked!

 

[DrSTU]

Have a look into ball line running for 7s, that's very effective if you tend to drop deep. Don't forget that you should be only running parallel lines when your GPS is viewed, how did they look?