The new United Rugby Championship season has given me an opportunity to take up a new role as I want to help the referees in a tournament that I enjoyed being part of for many, many years.
You may have seen recently that I've been named as one of four independent assessors who have been appointed to review the performances of match officials in the competition. The reason I agreed to get involved is because I want to put something back into the URC. It's a great tournament that I'm very passionate about.
Obviously my primary role is with the Welsh Rugby Union. My refereeing contract came to an end in June, at which point I took up a different role as a referee coach - which I had been doing the last year or so anyway. I coach the likes of Craig Evans, Ben Whitehouse and Ben Breakspear and look after and oversee the academy that the WRU have put together under the guidance of Paul Adams, the WRU's Head of Referees.
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But beyond that primary role, I also have the URC role now which runs alongside it. I'm part of the selectors group alongside George Clancy, Stuart Berry and Neil Paterson, with Tappe Henning heading it up as the league's Head of Match Officials. Every month, one of the referee managers will take it in turn to be part of that selection process. At the moment, it's Paul Adams involved at the moment, but that will rotate as time goes on.
My role is to watch one referee on the weekend and make notes on their performance to build a playlist. So, for example, I watched AJ Jacobs in the Munster Zebre game on the weekend. In terms of making a playlist, I'll note down a time and pick up on a decision - whether that's perhaps asking whether it should have been given or praising him for doing so - and then go through the accuracy of the penalties.
Once you've gone through them, I will then meet up with him and his coach over Zoom and go through any questions I have, discuss what they've done well and look over any things to work on, or decisions that they may have got wrong. After that, we'll have a discussion and come to an agreement about his overall performance.
Every Wednesday, under the guidance of Tappe, we then meet up for a few hours and discuss each referee's performance and decide when and where each official should be appointed next. We'll look at things like what they need to work on, are they ready for a tougher game, do they perhaps need an easier game or maybe do they need a weekend off to work on their performance at a lower level? That's how the process works.
It's not about marking referees down for what they did wrong, but trying to help them while making an overall assessment. If any queries come in from coaches, we as a group will look at that as well. It's pretty open and transparent process. Referees will have accountability, but it'll also hopefully help them get better and prepare them to make the step up from the URC to European and Test rugby.
There's some URC referees involved in some big, challenging matches in the autumn. Part of that is making sure we prepare them as well as we can for international level. That's how the process works in terms of what I'm involved in. I won't watch every game on the weekend, but I'll try watch as many as I can so if, say George Clancy is talking about a referee he viewed, I can offer my own insight on whether I agree or disagree.
What we will do as part of that group is give a clear message on trends. One of the big trends in the early rounds has been players not competing at lineouts legally, but jumping straight across. Blocking in the lineout and setting up mauls illegally is another.
As a group, we'll send that message around the officials that we need to be better on that. Hopefully, that will bring more consistency on that matter across the group of referees.
If we are to be honest about referees, we probably have to accept that there will be some referees who are better or more experienced than others. That's no different to the fact that not every player in the team you support will be an international. Unfortunately, there's often this idea that referees have to be nothing less than perfect.
The principle is that abilities are always different, but our aim is to help get as many as possible to that level of refereeing international rugby and to stay there. We want to make sure we give referees the best opportunity to perform for the good of the league and for their own opportunities as well.
The idea that referees from different countries makes a difference is a little bit of a myth. We all referee the same lawbook. Sometimes it's an easy excuse. Everything we do as a group of selectors is driven by World Rugby. They give us the directives on how they want things officiated and that message will go to the other competitions around the world.
We won't be telling officials to be refereeing things differently to how World Rugby want it. If you do get different styles as referees, that's down to human nature, rather than nationality.
When we were refereeing, maybe me and Jaco Peyper would deal with things differently. But then again, another referee from Wales and myself might also deal with things differently.
All we do is prepare referees and help them be as good as they can be for the good of the league and for their own progression. It's an exciting time to be involved in the URC, albeit in a totally different role to the one that I enjoyed so much for many years.
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