It was no surprise that the first topic of the evening was the Quins game and the antics of the Quins support staff. Ed explained that he had only been speaking to the referee about the game an hour or two before, in a conference call on his way to Worcester. He had not seen the tape yet but promised to review it and the number of times and total time that Quins medics were on the pitch.

Ed explained that the role of medics was to safeguard the welfare of players: as such, they should only be on the pitch when a player was injured. Water boys were only supposed to enter the playing area when there was a stoppage, not every time the whistle went. Ed acknowledged that there was a danger of this being abused and that referees had a responsibility to ensure that the rules were followed.

Nicola said that the Quins game was the first time that she had gone home after feeling upset. She hoped it was a one-off and that rugby did not go down that route as a game.

The next questioner asked for an explanation of the role of assistant referees, as he felt that too often they didn’t seem to contribute much to the game. Ed explained that their duty was to advise the referee on any issue that they believed was important to the well-being of the game and they did get involved. At the end of the day, however, there could be only one judge of fact on the pitch and that was the referee.

Ed did ask that we go easy on both referees and assistant referees. Firstly, they didn’t have the benefit of slowmo. They also had the worst viewpoint in the stadium – if we were in any doubt he recommended that we go and stand on the touchline at an amateur club game and see how different the view was to that from the stands.

Nicola said that she would like to see assistant referees intervene less often but do so more decisively, especially in instances of foul play and when players attempted to take advantage behind the referee’s back. She did sympathise with both referees and assistants, however: she had once refereed an U12s game and been touch judge for a men’s junior league game and found both experiences terrifying!

Ed acknowledged that consistency and quality were big challenges. There was a need to get better as a referee group, and to try to deliver consistent interpretations and decisions: in the same game would be a good start! He gave special thanks for Worcester’s contribution to Wayne Barnes’s development (Sarries anyone?) but refused to be drawn otherwise into comment on individuals, to his credit.

Ed also explained that referees had a personal assessment after each game. They had a pretty good idea, anyway, whether they had had a good game or not. Training was a lot better now than in his day (there wasn’t any!). They were also trying to encourage younger players who had been in academies, and been exposed to professional rugby, but who were not going to make the grade, to consider refereeing. He had started after giving up playing but still wanting to be involved in the game. He hadn’t really known what to do in his first game – he didn’t even have a stopwatch – but just followed a more experienced referee on the next pitch. Afterwards, everyone bought him a pint and he was rather merry by 8 o’clock, when he decided that it wasn’t a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon after all!

Ed was asked if Chris Horsman would make a good referee. Ed said that he could have fallen off his chair when Cecil rang him towards the end of last season and told him that Chris was thinking of going into refereeing but, fair play to him, he has gone in at grassroots level and started at the bottom. He wished him every success and hoped he would come through.

Nicola felt that Chris would make a good referee, simply because he would be able to scare most of the players! If he didn’t succeed, however, she felt that he could make it as a commentator – he was her favourite co-commentator amongst the players. He would also make an entertaining after dinner speaker.

The next question concerned Alex Ferguson’s remarks about referees being unfit – how did rugby union referees stay fit? Ed said that they had changed their fitness advisor in the summer, taking on a lady from Tottenham Hotspur, Alex Reid. She had developed personalised training schedules and referees were tested every 6 weeks – in the last round of tests all of them had recorded personal bests. The physical demands of the game were far greater now, both with the number of games and the length of time the ball was in play. They were still nowhere near the playing side (they didn’t have the resources) but Howard Webb had told him that they were far fitter than soccer refs.

Ed was asked for his views on referees being pushed, in view of recent incidents. Ed said that he had to be a bit careful, as there was an ongoing case (Brian Mujati, the prop from Saints, has since been banned for 6 weeks for pushing Nigel Owens in their Heineken Cup game against Perpignan) but he felt that you needed to look at intent. If it was a case of someone heading for a ruck or tackle, the ref just got in the way, and contact was accidental, he did not see an issue. The game had to be careful, however, not to get like soccer, with refs being abused, as there was already a problem with refs leaving the game. That went for comments from DoRs too: he had a lot of respect for Mike Ruddock, as he did his talking where it should be done and not in public.

Ed was asked if he felt that RU refs were influenced by RL refs. Ed recounted what happened when he refereed the World Cup final: the following week he refereed Worcester v Kendal! In those days rugby union was a game, mostly, for 30 players, the ref, two men and a dog! It had grown incredibly quickly: it was now an entertainment business, with supporters paying a lot of money and resulting in stadia like Sixways. Nevertheless, Ed felt that it was important that union retained its own identity, improved on its weaknesses and retained its strengths (it was great to see the maul back), whilst taking the best from other games.

Nicola had to leave at half-time for an early start the next morning. Before she went she was asked who she felt had been successes at Worcester and who had not lived up to their reputation. She felt that the following had not been good for Worcester: Hal Luscombe, who she felt had not wanted to be here; Rico Gear (although he had perhaps played his best game against Quins); Andy Gommarsall; and Ben Clarke, who had been absolutely disastrous. Those who had done well were: Alex Grove, a real “lightbulb moment”; Chris Latham, although he had not played so well this year; and Dale Rasmussen, who still brought a lot to the club, even though his best playing days were probably behind him. Finally, she would put Shane Drahm in both camps! Unfortunately, there wasn’t time for Nicola to explain her choices/reasons, but that just leaves plenty to discuss next time!

The first question after the break was how referees were chosen for each game. Ed explained that it was a complex system. For example, when he was a referee he was not allowed to referee Bristol, which he could understand, or Bath and Gloucester, which he couldn’t understand, as he hated them both! Now, each game was graded, e.g. Leicester v Wasps would be a high level game, with senior refs allocated to higher profile games. They do try to ensure that all referees get to referee each club but availability was key: English refs are highly regarded and 4-6 may be lost to international games during the relevant windows. This did give opportunities to yonger refs but Ed acknowledged that there was a need for greater strength in depth. Things should get easier over the next few years, as there was a group of very talented younger refs coming through.

Ed did acknowledge that referees, like players, suffered form issues. His tip was to see who was on the panel from one week to the next, as that might give an idea of who was in, or out of, form (is that why Rob Debney refereed a bottom of the table clash in the Championship between Bees and Titans the week after we played Sale??!!)

Concern was expressed over recent cases of players “play acting” to win penalties or get opposition players carded. Ed felt that, ultimately, it was clubs’ responsibility to stop it and it was not something that should be left at the door of the officials. It was a serious issue, however, and had been discussed at the recent ERC meeting in Dublin.

The next contributor wanted to know if refs analysed teams, in the same way that DoRs analyse refs. Ed confirmed that refs did a lot of analysis of games, and would probably look at the previous week’s games of the teams they were due to referee. This was to get to know a team’s strengths and weaknesses, although it was important not to go into games with prejudices and preconceptions about what a team might do!

Next up was the issue of injuries. Ed again referred to how much the sport had changed in the last 10 years, and this went for the players too. It was a concern that the laws of the game had maybe not kept pace and did not reflect the people playing today. This may be discussed further at an IRB medical conference on 10 November.

Ed then offered his thoughts on his own club, Bristol. He was still a season ticket holder at the Memorial Ground and attended as many games as he could. Whilst he was sad that there would be no Bristol v Bath game this season, as local rivalries were healthy in sport, he felt that Bristol had found their level. He did not believe that it was possible to sustain professional rugby on 4-5,000 supporters.

On his hosts he referred back to when he first used to come to Worcester: every time he came now, something else had been built! A lot of people he spoke to (and not just ones from Worcester!) thought that Worcester was the club of the future in terms of infrastructure, the growth of the support, and the size of the car park! He did admit, however, that most of those he spoke to were terrible gamblers! Ed enjoyed coming to Worcester, however: whilst we were like other clubs in that we liked to tell him what the ref had got wrong, and where he was going wrong, we did it politely! (Certainly a lot more politely than our near neighbours or some in the East Midlands! ;-)

Ed was then put on the spot and asked to name who he thought was the best ref in the world. Ed felt it was difficult to compare the present and the past because the game was so different: when he was playing it was about trying to control 30 blokes and it was not uncommon for the game to start with a punch up, end with a punch up, have a couple of fights in the middle, and then everyone bought each other a drink!! Now it was about trying to referee a game.

That said Ed considered that Alain Rolland from Ireland was currently the best, whilst Wayne Barnes could be the best. Jonathan Kaplan was very good, as was Nigel Owens. From his playing days, in his pomp Clive Norling took refereeing to another level, which others never got near.

The issue of TMOs was then raised. Ed said that there was a problem because some teams don’t get on Sky as much as others: it was not a level playing field. In principle, professional sport should have a TMO, but there was a challenge to get a better balance. In France, the non-televised games have an official in each dead ball area. He looked at this last year for PRL but resources are an issue – there are already 8 officials per game and you would probably need another 30 or so over a season.

On the question of regional rugby in England Ed admitted that if you were starting with a blank sheet of paper, you would probably want to spread the clubs in the GP around a bit more to build up support in other areas, e.g. the North West, where the game struggles against football and rugby league. The club game was viable, however, with increasing crowds, and had served England well, in RWC terms.

Finally, the thorny issue of relegation. Ed firmly believes in relegation and promotion. He felt that this season the GP is the most competitive we’ve ever seen: no team is outstanding and anyone could beat anyone. Leeds could have beaten Sarries; we could have beaten Saints, Leicester and Quins. Ed didn’t think anyone was safe in the GP this season and he wouldn’t bet on Leeds going down – they were better coached and better organised than last time they were in the GP and they would get better.

As for promotion, whilst he was passionate about Bristol he didn’t believe that they would come back up, as it was not viable financially and he didn’t want to see the club become the Premiership whipping boys: it could even send the club out of business. Ed thought that the only club with the resources, both on and off the field, was Exeter.

Our thanks must go to the Supporters Club Committee and WRFC Trading for another great night. Money was also raised, via a raffle, for the Supporters Club Development Fund, providing support to Academy Players with the cost of food supplements.

The next events are:

1. a Quiz night in October;
2. a live Q&A session on the radio, with Mike Ruddock and others, hosted by BBC Hereford and Worcester in December;
3. the ever popular “Meet the Players Evening”, which is likely to be in January.

Please look out for announcements and come along.

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