Match officials to don green in nod to connection with junior refs
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The match officials appointed to this year’s Hostplus Cup grand final will don green, head to toe, in support of junior referees who have played their part to make the game of rugby league happen across season 2024.
Junior referees wore green socks as part of this year’s ‘If their socks are green, they are under 18’ campaign, which aimed to create a positive environment for young referees, encouraging people to treat young referees with respect, refrain from abuse and understand they are still learning, just like players.
Queensland Rugby League state match officials manager Clayton Sharpe said the High Performance Unit match officials appointed as referee and touch judges for the Hostplus Cup grand final wearing green tied all Queensland match officials together.
“It links our support, our more elite match officials’ support, of our community under 18 match officials,” Sharpe said.
“I think it’s a really important initiative to show support for our younger match officials… and for them to know that they’re invested in, not just by someone sitting in an office, but also by people who are out there refereeing the same as they are. I hope this makes them feel supported and part of our officiating community.”
Sharpe said it was not just on Grand Final Day, presented by Ford, this occurred, but throughout the year, the 50 High Performance Unit match officials often went above and beyond to ensure there was a real match officials community across all levels.
Sharpe said some of the things they did included attending association training sessions to educate and upskill community match officials and running online webinars to connect with and educate senior community match officials.
They also attend and facilitate officiating activations to engage, educate and support junior community match officials, offer game day experiences at NRL and QRL statewide competition games and set standards on-field in statewide competitions that filter down to community.
“And they go to some of our development carnivals, and give up their time to coach aspirational referees,” Sharpe said.
“They do a fair bit of stuff to give back to community, on top of their own requirements, which is training three to four times a week, games once or twice a week, reviewing their own games, reviewing junior rep games when junior rep is on, and reviewing their peers, being a match day coach.
“The higher up they get, the larger commitment, which reflects our community refs who also have a high commitment because they do a lot of games across a weekend, week-in, week-out, for the entirety of the season.”
Sharpe said all match officials were intrinsically linked and it was good to celebrate that.
“I don’t like to use the term ‘if you can’t see it, you can’t be it’ but we have a clear line of sight from community through to the NRL, with the way that we develop through the carnival system,” Sharpe said.
“We’ve got pathways for those who just want to be community referees and then we’ve got clear pathways for those who are aspirational and want to go through. It’s really important that, once they start on that journey, they have some connection with the High Performance Unit, because they’re the people they want to be.
“That’s why we get our guys to coach them because they’re getting coached by the people they want to be. A lot of peer coaching. We can do some of the coaching, working on bits and pieces, but they want to hear from people who are in the trenches with them.
“(QRL officiating high performance manager Andrew Wareham) and I have worked really hard on building a really good culture in the High Performance Unit … everybody has bought in, who is there… we support them, but they also support the next generation… there’s never any questions… a lot of the time, these referees go and do in themselves before they’re even asked.”
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