THE ABUSE HAS TO STOP!!
It is appalling to have to write that the Referees have noted this as one of the worst Seasons for Referee Abuse! Now I do not believe you can blame Covid-19 for that. Sure, who hasn’t uttered “Aw Ref”, but what we are talking about here is ABUSE! One local Club (not to be named here but should be named and shamed) had their Premier & Premier Reserve
Coaches stood down. Then Stuff reported a named Player (a Club and Lions/Hurricanes Player) to be stood down for 5 weeks – and he was the Waterboy. I pose the question – is this Abuse or downright (lacking intestinal fortitude) Bullying? Look at it from a clinical point of view. The Referee is dressed in white to stand out from the Players, thus to a Bully, a standout target for a person (?) with at least 14 or 15 backing him – not necessarily agreeing. I am thinking that Abuse by Coaches and/or
Players should have a minimum of 5 weeks stand down with 2 weeks supervised learning to referee, then 3 of weeks supervised refereeing of lower grade games. Sounds somewhat absurd, but for the sake of our great game some thinking outside the box is required. My final comment (in this column) is that all people have choices. Picture this; you are a Referee who has suffered abuse and your game on Saturday is at a Park known for abuse. You wake up to a horrible Winters Day that is not going to
improve, you know what is going to happen at the game – what do you do? Do you phone in with an illness and roll over and go back to sleep or do you do what our referees do – turn up?? Fortunately, our referees believe in what they do, but we are only Human.
Off the Podium and back to our great Game. You may recall my recent Report suggesting that our Colts are raring to go. After some time the Colts finally got a good game. They were at Norths on #2 field, whilst the other Norths side played on the main ground against Petone. The Colts scored in the first minute, then two minutes later, Norths scored. Then
our Colts settled into a bit of rhythm and proceeded to show dominance. The Forwards were superior in every way showing skills beyond their maturity. Not to be left out, our Backs played with accuracy, pace and very good defence. A well deserved win from a convincing display. 38-15
I did not see the Premier Reserve Game, but spoke to a pretty disappointed bunch of young men somewhat gutted by a 25-24 loss. Although sitting at 7th, the Reserves are only 4 points behind 4th position. A lot to summarise, but only two rounds to go.
