How far does a referee cover during a game?

[upnunder]

I wondered how far a referee covers during a game, so wore my Garmin last week to see if it picked up all my movements.
The results were quite interesting (to me anyway).

the game can be seen here
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/163362139#.T4R_1PafSXA.link

The game was a Yorkshire 1 (level 7) game, with the final result 92-10, so more sprints than in a normal game, but the distance covered was consistent with others I have measured.

 

[Dixie]

So to save everyone a bit of time, 4.18 miles. 30 minutes out of his 95 were spent standing still. Happy feet!

 

[johnnied]

The average for an Aviva Premiership Referee is 8.5km, which is the same as a scrum half.

That line out to the right - was that you going to collect the ball!

 

[ExHookah]

According to my Garmin I seem to hit between 3.7 and 4 miles, almost without fail. Never less than 3.5, and only over 4.2 on a couple of freak occasions.

 

[pwhaling]

I've been considering a GPS watch for a while. Do people find them useful or more of a novelty?

 

[Dixie]

Novelty - it soon wears off. As Ex-Hooker says, every game looks the same.

 

[Brad Cole]

I assume the elevation spikes correlate with the penalty count.

 

[Lee Lifeson-Peart]

I told you it was a bit of a walk to the pitch.

 

[upnunder]

I've been considering a GPS watch for a while. Do people find them useful or more of a novelty?

Incredibly useful for running, especially racing, but I rarely wear it for rugby, although it is useful as a second watch to keep running time.
I run 3-4 times a week and wear it every time I run or train

 

[ckuxmann]

Personally it's a novelty item, I can get a little bit more data in terms of Heart Rate which I have then used to enhance my training to more game like. I personally don't think that as a referee it's a item that enhances my performance much. It's not worth the money unless you can get it cheap.

 

[JP_Rocks]

I've done 3 games so far this year while wearing my forerunner:
Game 1 (preseason)- 5.7 km (3.6miles), 53 mins moving time
Game 2- 4.4 km (2.8 miles), 45 mins moving time
Game 3- 5.3 km (3.3 miles), 50 mins moving time

The first game was pretty normal, the second game was pretty woeful (such poor handling), and the third was a forward dominated game combined with poor handling overall. Hmm, small sample size, but it suggests that I could stand to be a little less economic with my movement. Or if optimistic, it could suggest that my anticipation and foresight as to where the play will go allows me to cut down on any ancilliary movement around the park... Depends which way you spin it I guess. I do save myself a good 600m+ per game as I only need to referee from the front of the lineout on rare occaisions as I've had AR's with comms gear at all games.

I've got a colts game this weekend (no appointed AR's), so will be interesting to see how this compares.

 

[Simon Thomas]

Thanks for sharing gents - interesting.

 

[ExHookah]

The mileage is oddly consistent, there are other things that are useful to note over the course of a season. Top speed, Avg HR and top HR. These sort of things help you track fitness.

 

[Drift]

Lowest I have done is 4.9km in 80 minutes (not sure of the moving time) and the highest I have done is over 8km.

 

[Davet]

Inyteresting, I remeber reading - many many years ago when such stuff was probably only estimated by eye and mind, that top level soccer refs would cover as much as 9 miles in a game.

Either that was grossly inaccurate or things 'aven't 'alf changed.

 

[JP_Rocks]

Colts game on saturday was 5.5km, but that was 3.1km first half, 2.4 in a second half plagued by handling errors... More interestingly, I covered 4.4km running touch for the senior game afterwards while the referee (also wearing a GPS unit) only covered 5km. Plenty of shots at goal to rack up the distance.

 

[Constantine]

A friend did his masters on rugby referees - I believe he found that on average referees from premier club, ITM cup and Super Rugby ran 7kms per game.