Queensland Rugby League's High Performance Unit will this week celebrate their efforts over months of pre-season ahead of the Hostplus Cup season – but it’s not the only thing they can be proud of.
On Tuesday night the HPU season launch engages all our elite referees as we announce the appointments for Round 1, joined by members of the QRL senior leadership team.
NRL head of elite officiating Jared Maxwell will also address the group to strengthen the connection and highlight the pathway available for QRL HPU officials.
The focus for us is enhancing the culture we’ve got in our HPU and it only builds by holding events like our season launch in a sign of appreciation and encouragement for our officials.
The greater the engagement at the top, the greater benefit we will see flow through to the grassroots. We know that because it’s already happening.
The buy-in has been incredible from our HPU members wanting to coach and mentor our development squad officials nearing the midway point of their Harvey Norman Under 19s, Auswide Bank Mal Meninga Cup and Cyril Connell Challenge seasons.
If you’re getting coached by someone in the grade you want to get to, it’s going to upskill them, the transfer of knowledge and game understanding and skill will happen quicker than if we were just relying on matchday and postgame coaches at community level.
It’s an immediate benefit because they’re getting better coaching right away, but it will be long-term benefit for our community referees because eventually it will flow all the way down.
For the first time this year, a handful of our junior statewide competitions officials will transition into HPU, but we’ll keep investing in the other 50 or so by inviting many to HPU training on a rostered basis.
Not only does this ‘work experience’ keep them in touch with the elite environment – a level of professionalism they can implement in grassroots footy – it gives them an incentive to keep striving for the pathway and importantly keep them involved at grassroots level, where they too can pass on their knowledge.
Our local associations are currently in the thick of their recruitment process for the upcoming seasons, with a series of induction days designed to bring new people in, engage their members and upskill returning officials through a new accreditation process in conjunction with the NRL.
