Mental skills and refereeing at training
Thoughts from my recent session and ideas for you
At a recent training session, I did a session where the team focused on mental skills and referees.
I’d planned it before the recent news about Tom Foley stepping away from international refereeing, but it made the session more relevant.
This is what I planned as a level 1 session and how I might build on this to go to level 2 and 3.
We played a series of games across the session. Before the main games, I discussed the running of the session, why we were running it, how it might test our mental skills.
I told them that the first game would be refereed by me. For the 1st half, I was be biased against one team, at half time this switched. Giving the team this prompt was important for a level 1 session.
I rarely use a whistle in training. This may seem odd but players come to training for a break and to have some time for themselves. If a player is neurodivergent, a constant and loud whistle that occurs close to them could be overwhelming.
How I set up my games and training areas can mean that the playing area is smaller than a pitch and due to the way I was refereeing the whistle would be blown more than a normal game. This meant I had to consider how this would affect players.
I did use a whistle whilst I refereed. In order to help players who might struggle with this noise, I told the group beforehand. I also stepped to the side of the pitch when blowing the whistle and didn’t use the whistle too firmly.
This act helped players get used to playing to the whistle. The method I used is useful for any players new to the sport as well as those who may find the noise disruptive.
At the start of the game, players nominated a captain. The captain’s played a game of rock, paper, scissors. Whoever won started with the ball. We played two halves, at half time I switched which team I was biased against.
The team I was biased against had a number of narrow calls go against them including:
Offside calls that were close
All dropped balls were turnovers whether they went forward or not
Marginal flat passes were forward
Players reacted well. They felt under pressure, but took their chances playing to the game I was refereeing.
After this game, players then took turns refereeing the game. They had two focuses: forward passes and knock ons.
All players acknowledged how difficult it was to spot everything at the same time.
Our discussions at the end mentioned playing to the whistle, recognising the pressure of referees and how our own perceptions and biases can shape our views.
Now my focus turns to what a level 2 session looks like. I might try these next:
Refereeing with bias and without a prompt
Call the ball out of the ruck for one team but not the other
Penalise one team for jackling
Similar to the level 1 session, these harsh referee calls will put the teams under mental pressure. It should also force them to react to the game as it is being refereed.
For example when the jackal is practically banned for one team, will they react by stopping their counter rucking and instead focusing on other ways to defend?
Referee sessions like this can be run no matter the level or ability of a team. It can be fully adaptable to any game a team are playing at training.
A level 1 session (and future sessions) helped the team’s skills, leadership and empathy.
Let me know if you run something similar in your environment and how it worked!