Referee Coach Course

[sgoat]

Myself and a couple of other referees from the uni are going to do the Referee Coach course is October to help us mentor the new referees we get. Has anyone done it and if so got any more information about it than the standard stuff on the RFU site?

 

[SimonSmith]

I did the USA version a few months ago.

Would that help your discussion?

 

[sgoat]

I presume they are both of similar content, and based on some IRB guidlines, so yes.

 

[ExHookah]

I did the USA version a few months ago.

Would that help your discussion?

I did the US one a few years ago. Might be able to find the documents and post them on here.

 

[barker14610]

SimonSmith and Hookah- did you find the course helpful? I may take it as well. I might have to sit the fall with some tedonopathy. I am hoping not, but just in case

 

[ExHookah]

SimonSmith and Hookah- did you find the course helpful? I may take it as well. I might have to sit the fall with some tedonopathy. I am hoping not, but just in case

Yes, very.

I took the level 1, which is coaching, and the level 2, which is evaluating. It was taught by Don Morrison and Peter Watson, who are probably the top two evaluators in the US.

 

[SimonSmith]

Not quite as illuminating as Nick.

I'd already done the first evaluator's course in Hampshire a few years ago.

Depends what you're looking for: does it help you in how to coach a referee? Kind of. But if you and I sat down with a blank sheet of paper and tried to work out what information would be of use to a referee, we'd come up with something close to what we're given.
What it doesn't do is teach you how to interpret the information you collate - the sort of stuff that you only get with understanding both rugby as a sport and refereeing it.
It also isn't great at teaching you HOW to deliver feedback. Now, I admit I come at this from the viewpoint of a HR professional, but how you deliver feedback is critical to how it is received. That can't be taught and reinforced in a two hour session.

Did it help me as a referee? Yep. Reinforced what I took away from the Hampshire course which was developing the ability to dissect the game as it's going on and spotting trends within the game. I call it my "three fils" model:
1. You have to referee what you see immediately in front of you. Film 1
2. Put that in the context of the immediate past 5, 10 minutes. What trends are coming out now? Film 2.
3. Overall pattern and history of the game. Film 3 (is the scrum ALWAYS going down on Blue's put in, or is it fairly even?, as an example)

Doing the Coaching course did help reinforce that thought process. I also found that the coaching and evaluating generally helped my thinking about refereeing. Because you're passing on feedback, it helps you develop the "what would I have done?" process.

 

[ExHookah]

As Simon said, it's a big help for your own refereeing. I took it when I was still a C2, and I found it helped my refereeing a lot.

 

[Padster]

I found it very helpful and gave me a chance to assist other refs whilst I was out of action through injury. It put into perspective what assessors and advisors had been saying to me. The booklet that went with the course - identifying problems, their causes and possible solutions is a terrific resource.

 

[barker14610]

I am convinced. I have been meaning to but missed the class here last month. I wish the IRB could make some of the didactic stuff distance learning.

 

[barker14610]

Interesting, just found out I am going to learn to teachj the Level One course as well. You can never learn enough right

 

[Simon Thomas]

Myself and a couple of other referees from the uni are going to do the Referee Coach course is October to help us mentor the new referees we get. Has anyone done it and if so got any more information about it than the standard stuff on the RFU site?

Have you already done the RFU Adviser 1 and 2 courses ? It is just like when you were climbing in refereeing.

In the Assessor/Coach Development Pathway at about level 6/7 you would do the Referee Coach Course if going down that route or the Group Assessor course if going that way.

But as a level 6 ref surely you need to be concentrating on getting yourself developned sand up to Group standard and then push for Panel.

You should know enough and picked up enough from your own coaches, assessors & advisers to be excellent mentors for new refs. without doing the Referee Coach course.

The RFU Referee Course is quite technical and has a lot of multi-sport coaching theory included too - motivation, goal setting, identifying underperformace, setting short - medium - long term goals, etc.

Unlesyou are going to use as an active referee coach at level 6/7. I can't see that most of it is going to either useful for you or be retained, anbd def not needed for mentoring duties.

Have a chat with your Federation / Group / Society managers and get their advice. It may be totally different to mine. If you do the course, let me know what you thought as I may be wrong and depriving my guys of a useful learning curve !

 

[sgoat]

Simon,

I was under the impression that although it could be a progression from advising, it was also a stand-alone course? The reason for this is that our RefDO has offered to run the course for us in October just before our guys do the ELRA. We don't think this can hurt and even if we don't actively coach a referee it may give us some things to consider.

I will certainly be focusing on developing my own refereeing and will be pushing for group this year while one of the others is on the group and will be pushing for panel, but as students we have lots of rugby at our disposal. Durham already run a very successful floodlit competition on Tuesday evenings with a full miked up TO3 drawn from the development squad. At this competition there are usually at least 10 other referees/referee coaches/advisers on the sidelines analysing. We then have a feedback session for the referee and his ARs afterwards.

We also have inter-college games on Wednesday afternoons and Saturdays and Sundays. It is our hope as a University Referees' Society to cover these games with all of our newly qualified ELRA referees with the university's society referees mentoring them. We will then fill in any games when required. That leaves us Saturday afternoon to do our main game for the Society/Federation/Group.

In terms of the course content, two of us are already L2 coaches and the other is a L1. Hopefully that will help?

 

[Simon Thomas]

If your RefDevOff reckons it is a good route, brilliant. Love to know what you think about it afterwards.

Yes the RFU Coaching Course can be stand-alone and if you have done (as you say you have) RFU Coaching levels 1 and or 2 then many of the coaching elements will be familiar, so less of a hassle to cope with new concpets.

Maybe the next stage we will have to all have to be under 40 to be considered as National Panel Coach or Assessor candidates ! :wink:

On a serious note, you guys have done a brilliant job as a Uni Soc working along with the main Durham Soc, got some young refs thru to Group (Panel maybe soon) and covering off a large rugby community both in Uni and civvy street. I am only too aware how tough it is as we have spent a year trying to establish a Uni Society for Southampton, Southampton Medics, Solent, Portsmouth and Winchester Unis. Hard work (alongside normal Society life) but we have a few key students who are good lads and up to level 9, but most are so casual and relaxed about it, prefer to play themselves, etc. What is Durham's secret ? How did you get the critical mass ? How did you get the admin volunteers ?

 

[sgoat]

I am looking forward to the course, I see it as another thing that can help my refereeing as well as others. I have always held that if you can teach a topic then you have to know it thoroughly. Hopefully having to diagnose why new referees are missing things will help me spot more?

Regarding Durham's success I don't know what exactly it is down to. I have written down some thoughts (well it turned into a 3 page ramble) in the attached document. Maybe that might shed some light? Feel free to ask questions and to suggest advice, all ideas considered.

 

[Simon Thomas]

Thanks for the document - good useful stuff.

You guys have done a brilliant job, and at the same time to have three students reffing at 5,6 & 7 is awesome. Genuinely serious respect ! :clap:

Have you come across Deeps Junior who is at Newcastle Uni (Gareth Holloway) ?

 

[sgoat]

Have you come across Deeps Junior who is at Newcastle Uni (Gareth Holloway) ?

Not yet, but I think Deeps is going to see if he wants to come down to Durham at all next term for some games. That goes for anyone who happens to be passing too. We can always find you a game.

It is thought that our games are graded as the equivilant of L10 - L8, rising to possibly a L7 for the latter stages of the Floodlit Cup. Although obviously they are less physical than normal men's rugby.

 

[barker14610]

Goat-
We are looking at getting a scheduling system that will even pay refs. I think it can do evals, scores and a lot more. The tech may appeal to a young group like yours. It is at:

http://www.arbitersports.com/Index.aspx

 

[sgoat]

Goat-
We are looking at getting a scheduling system that will even pay refs. I think it can do evals, scores and a lot more. The tech may appeal to a young group like yours. It is at:

http://www.arbitersports.com/Index.aspx

Looks interesting, only trouble is that all payments are through a Utah bank and must be in US $. I currently use bank transfers to all our referees. All their details are on the internet banking so all it takes is a few clicks to select the amount.

We have never really done appointments properly. It has always been a bit of paper or a spreadsheet for each week. Each ref then gets rung up and asked when they are available and then told what they are doing for the week. Would a proper system would be useful?

We have about 150 matches in the season, but there are always a lot of re-arrrangements, so something with a really easy facility to change fixtures would be good. Our RefDO wants us to use RugbyFirst, is it any good or is there something better out there?

[Mods: Might want to split this into another thread?]

 

[Simon Thomas]

RugbyFirst - light my blue touchpaper and run ! The whole project (Trafalgar it was called !) has been poor - I was involved at the early stages as a Society 'end user' and gave them my views (as a Society Chairman and as a Times 100 plc company IT & Applications Director !). Apparently they knew best.

RFU Web Site - still crap, badly designed, and little updated outside of news page.
RFU RugbyFirst members database - duplicate entries, mysterious deletions, poor reporting, no data upload, and not reliable.
RFU RugbyFirst Appointments system - massive input from a number of Societies at spec, development and testing stages - still not live (all a bit of a joke really).

Five years in development, wrong technology used, poor implementation, and RugbyFirst still doesn't work.

Excel works just fine for small Societies ! For 150 appointments in a season, RugbyFirst (even if it worked) would be totally inappropriate as it is not desigfned to handle lots of last minute changes.

London Society and some others have a reliable software tool built and now running pretty well over a number of years, and a few Societies (and SRU) use a USA based software costing $200 licence.

If I were you sgoat stick to Excel !