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the whistleblower
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Tue, 06 May 08 11:17 GMT
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Some societies, such as Sussex I believe, grade the lowest level games at 12. I suspect yours uses 16 as an indicator of reffing inexperience, as I have never come across a L.16 game. However your Society chooses to grade them, the games you can expect are Vets and 5th XV games - usually populated by vastly experienced, wily old practitioners who will cheat like mad, but will take 20 minutes to get going, and will struggle to keep up the intensity beyond 50 minutes.
In my view, these games are unfair on a new ref. The game tends to get unstructured and messy towards the end, before you've had a chance to develop the skills to manage such situations. In addition, all the players know how to push a ref, and will get away with murder until you toughen up and get a feel for how a game should go. However, you'll just have to do your time. Don't get despondent - your first few games will probably be cr@p, and then the penny will drop and you will fly.
If you are fit enough, cast around for junior (i.e. U.13 to U.19) games to ref. The standard here can be very high, but the cheating is vastly less. If your society doesn't appoint to these games (and many don't; it can be hard to get refs to turn out twice in a w/e), then make contact with a local club yourself, and consider taking games freelance (without wearing your Society shirt, unless you have the Society's approval). Before doing that, you need to know that the club's RFU insurance will insure you, but at a lower level than if you had been appointed by the Society. You should also be realistic about your abilities, and refuse key U.19 league matches. Start off with younger age group matches before transitioning to U.16 and above, which can sometimes be challenging for a L.8 ref, given the testosterone swilling around.
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Whistleblower |
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arurs880
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Mon, 05 May 08 18:10 GMT
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now haveing done my 5 games as apart of my elra. so now i have become a level 16+ i am just woundering who play's at level 16 as the games i done are around 11/12
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