DIRECTOR OF REFEREES’ REPORT Mr. George Elias
The season kicked off on the weekend of the 6 & 7 March with trials. With only 3 grounds and 16 games, all referees appointed officiated without any pull outs or requests for change of grounds. I thought the job was easy. Things deteriorated from then. Almost every weekend thereafter it was necessary to make changes. It was not always our members doing, as sometimes the Junior League made late changes. The majority of our members were able to fulfil their appointments, however there are some who requested late changes, where it was obvious that they would have known of their weekend commitments before the appointments were made. Active referees are to take note that one request for a change or pull out, could require many phone calls to cover that one change. It also means your fellow referee(s) have to over commit from what they originally thought they had to do. The trials ran over 4 weeks and for the first time, the referees were paid. Due to restrictions on only refereeing Sunday trials and only games involving Canterbury teams, we were able to cover all games. I would like to thank all those referees who officiated in these trials, mostly during the hottest part of the day. The season proper commenced in early April, with sadly 12 referees not officiating from the previous year. This is a serious concern and the Association is doing everything possible to limit this. We lost a few more during the season, one of which was my son. Whilst this was disappointing to me personally, I have come to realise that referees are a special breed and that referees are born, not made. On a positive note, we picked up 7 new referees, during the year. This does not count Matt Hewitt, who came out of retirement to do an Under 17’s line. To Feras, the referee of that game, you have bragging rights which very few district referees have. i.e. having an ex first grade referee running your line. During the season we were able to provide referees & touch judges to all matches, except for the occasional touch judges on a Saturday afternoon to Under 14’s matches. This was due to generally having the games at different grounds and 22
