Mayday call for Hawke's Bay rugby referees

Hawke's Bay Rugby referee manager Keith Groube puts some of refereeing's potential rescuers through a new course at union headquarters in Napier. Photo / Doug Laing

The Hawke's Bay Rugby Union's plea for more referees has become a mayday call after the realisation senior grade could be without referees for a while when the grade's season starts on May 1.

The alert came in an email to clubs from club rugby ambassador Gary Macdonald on Wednesday afternoon.

Macdonald said it is expected four games will be played each Saturday in the Division 3 grade, the last of the Senior, Colts or Women's grades to get under way.

But Hawke's Bay Rugby referee manager Keith Groube said Division 3 home teams will have to provide associate referees to control the games unless there are "spare" referees available.

As the season steps up to include secondary schools and junior grades, members of the wider Hawke's Bay Magpies train-on squad are likely to be pressed into action with the whistle.

A request for clubs to each provide at least one referee for associate referee training had had mediocre results, some providing names of people involved with the Hawke's Bay Referees Association – leaving nine potential referees nominated from among eight clubs – fewer than half of the 19 clubs fielding teams in the grades this year.

The first of their referee courses took place on Wednesday night, with six of the candidates, almost all having done some form of officiating, attending, along with about 30 Magpies player hopefuls.

Groube has noticed the decline in numbers since about the mid-1990s, and is lost for answers on how to bring referee numbers back to some form of abundance.

"I don't know what we're going to do," he said, although Hawke's Bay has taken a big step in introducing a referee abuse policy, and something that the New Zealand union did not have and something that is now being sought by other provincial unions.

It was highlighted last week when the Hawke's Bay union judiciary banned a player for 12 weeks for verbally abusing a referee, effectively ending the player's season just two games (less red-card time) after it had begun.

Abuse from players and spectators has been cited as one factor in referees leaving the game.

Current referee and associate referees give a "buffer" of about 10 when 41 are needed for the games from Colts to Premier, but in practice such a number is never available once individual circumstance such as injuries or illness, or work and family commitments limit weekly availability.