Referee Ready courses start now

 

Want to become a referee? Take the first step and join a Referee Ready course online. First offering for the year is Monday 1st March, and they will be offered regularly online throughout the year. 

To sign up for a course go to myaccount.rugby.com.au and in the Learning Center and enroll in the Referee Ready course. 

If you would like a face to face delivery of this course at your club for a group, please email vrraed@gmail.com to arrange a referee to come to you.

2020 AGM 6:30pm 30th November

 

The annual general meeting of the Victorian Rugby Referees Association to be held online at 6:30pm with Google Meet on the 30th November 2020.

Click this link to add the AGM to your calendar.

Documents including previous minutes, proxy nomination form and committee nomination forms have been emailed to all current members. If you have not received these, please email vrrasecretary@gmail.com.

Rebels 10 Year Favorite XV - Captain

Yep were in lockdown in Melbourne and there's no local rugby, but we still got together this month for a chat and a bit of fun.

With so many positive responses from last months meeting, we carried on with the same theme - the Rebels 10 Year favorite XV. This time we asked a little more from the group, those nominating a candidate had to debate the merits of their nomination within a strict time limit of 60 seconds.

There was a strong field of contenders, with very compelling arguments given, but when it came to the voting there was overwhelming support for our winner, MARK ROWE! Although our Favorite XV has been a bit of fun for us - its great that we can give a shout out to one the Rebels hardest working and longest serving team members. Congratulations on your 150 game milestone Rowey. 

The vice captain winner may sound a bit controversial, but hey, remember this activity is for fun! Joint vice captains are Kurtley Beale | James O'Conner | Danny Cipriani. Their case was admirably argued by the elected Honorary Chairman of Selectors for the 10 Year Favorite XV - Hamish Bertram. 

Thanks to everyone who joined in and gave your communication skills a work out! 

Rebels 10 Year Favourite XV

As part of our last education and social get together the VRRA membership was invited to vote for their favourite All Time Rebels XV to join in the 10 year celebration of our local (and for some, favourite) Super team.

A comprehensive list was compiled that included every player to earn a cap for the team over the 10 years - 165 in total.

Like most elections with non compulsory voting, the  turnout was slightly disappointing. But as we all know, if you don't vote you forgo your right to complain about the outcome. i.e. don't blame us for the results if you didn't vote 😄

The final results were an interesting mix, with nostalgia appearing to play a factor in the forward pack, whilst the backline was dominated by current and more recent selections. Perhaps this says something about the recruitment strategies across the years with a focus put on the forward pack initially and a bit of a revolving door in the back line?

A number of players who won Wallaby caps missed out on making this auspicious team which was an interesting outcome.

Your VRRA Rebels 10 Year Favourite XV

1. Toby Smith

2. Shota Horie

3. Laurie Weeks

4. Adam Coleman

5. Luke Jones

6. Scott Higginbotham

7. Sean McMahon

8. Gareth Delve

9. Will Genia

10. Matt Toomua

11. Marika Koroibete

12. Stirling Mortlock

13. Tom English

14. Reece Hodge

15. Dane Haylett-Petty

Honour boards now live on our website

Traditionally clubs and associations have large wooden boards in their club and meeting houses, that list office bearers and award winners. These physical reminders invoke a sense of history, foundation, and a way for new members to connect with past members.

We don't have a clubhouse and our typical off field presence in this day-and-age is online. So I'd like to introduce to you our Virtual Honours Board (or click on the tab Honours at the top of this page). Take a look around for some familiar names - many popping up over and over.

These records have been compiled from hard copy and digital meeting minutes, actual shields, assorted documentation and a little bit of member memories. If you spot typos, or know first names of people that can replace an initial, or have documents from the 80's or earlier that can shed light on more of our history, please email vrrasecretary@gmail.com.

Scrum review activity

Need to or want to, brush up on scrum process? A great way to do this is to look at a full games worth of scrums and plan what your communications, actions and decisions should be at each one. Context matters - that's why you watch a whole games worth.

Use this scrum review template (in Library > Learning Resources) to list out each scrum, the action the referee should do, what the players are doing, what talk from the ref is required and a description of context.

To use as a development tool - watch one of your own games. What you choose at home on paper, might not be what you did on the day - but this is how you can implant better actions and outcomes in your mind, ready for the next game. Even if you don't have videos of your own game, use this as a learning tool by watching any other game! 

Of course, this template is already filled in - use it (and the videos linked) as a guide but make a copy, empty it out, and try it with your own.

Education meeting for June - Scrums

Join us next Wednesday 17th at 6:30pm ONLINE for our next education session. The session will be about scrums.

Similar to previous sessions, this is best attended on a computer, a tablet or phone can be used but may limit your participation.

When you join, please be respectful of others by initially muting your microphone and not showing your video immediately. Discussion and sharing may already have commenced.

Join the Zoom meeting at https://rugbyau.zoom.us/j/95942743577