Narrabri Rugby Club’s referee’s scholarship program already paying dividends

Narrabri Rugby Club recently welcomed women’s sevens gun Shona McFarland and Narrabri Junior Rugby Club players Will Ford and Nick Coffey to its referee scholarship squad and the program is already paying dividends.

At just 17-years-old, Shona was named as an assistant referee for last Saturday’s Central North Rugby Union round 13 reserve grade fixture between Narrabri and Walcha at Dangar Park.

She did a fine job carrying the flag for that match before receiving a call-up to be an assistant referee for the first grade game.

15-year-old Will was the fourth official for both matches on the day.

Narrabri Rugby Club’s referee liaison Daniel Kahl, who is also Central North Rugby Union’s junior vice-president, told The Courier that the aim of the program was to develop referees to keep the game moving forward in the near-future while also providing another avenue to ensure people remain involved in rugby union.

“With our three junior referees we have a really good spread of refs,” Kahl said.

“The idea is to start exposing these guys to the pathways available to them with refereeing and try to develop them.

“The zone is pretty short of referees and we are regularly, as a club, having to appoint our own referees to cover games.

“We need to keep encouraging people to take up the whistle.

“It will also help our junior players as players and hopefully they also see it as an opportunity to stay involved in the game going forward if they choose not to keep playing.”

Kahl said that it was encouraging to see Shona not only officiate the sideline in a first grade game, but carry out her duties to a high standard.

“It just shows that there is a really good opportunity for people to advance quickly if they want to have a go and learn and improve,” Kahl added.

“Reffing is the same as playing, it’s something you need to train for and really try to improve at and if you can do that there’s a pretty quick pathway to getting involved at a higher level if that’s what you want to do.”

Shona, who has refereed at junior level for the past year, said that she enjoyed her first opportunity to be a part of a senior game.

“I’m very happy, it was very exciting and a good learning experience,” she said.

“The wet ground was a bit of a challenge, there was a lot of water down the sidelines but we managed.

“I’ve been reffing for a year now and I want to keep doing teenage games in the middle but I’ll also try to keep doing AR for the opens games too.”