NZ Rugby wants to triple the number of female rugby referees - starting with the rise of Natarsha Ganley to Super Rugby honours, and handing a whistle to an Aupiki star player in a new scholarship. Suzanne McFadden writes.
Natarsha Ganley loves rules. So during the week, she's on the lookout for money launderers and people funding terrorism. And on weekends she watches for knock-ons and players offside - fast-tracking to become one of the top rugby referees in the country.
Ganley reckons her two careers – as a national referee and a compliance analyst for investment advisors - dovetail nicely.
For three years she put down her whistle to concentrate solely on her day job, but now she’s returned to rugby she says she has a much healthier mindset.
“I feel a weight off my shoulders - I’m in a better headspace to love what I do. Reffing isn’t a chore. And to be part of such amazing footie right now is something very cool,” she says.
This Super Rugby Aupiki season has seen Northland-born Ganley become the 30th referee in Super Rugby history. Last week she officiated her 30th first class rugby match.
This weekend, she'll be out in the middle with her whistle for Aupiki’s third and fourth play-off between the Blues and Hurricanes Poua. (The Chiefs Manawa v Matatū final will be refereed by Nick Hogan).
READ MORE: * Black Ferns pioneer now rating the world's refs * Possum hunter Krysten Cottrell leaves bush for the Blues
One of the players Ganley will be running after, Blues playmaker Krysten Cottrell, is now following in Ganley’s stride – part of a new scholarship initiative encouraging female players to take up refereeing.
In fact, Cottrell was an assistant referee yesterday running the sidelines at the Super Rugby U20s tournament in Taupō.
Ganley is thrilled to see more female referees coming to the fore. “There aren’t many of us. But with the game growing, it would be cool to get more girls reffing as well,” she says.
“What rugby has given me is self-confidence, that's transferred over to my business career too. Knowing you can handle whatever gets thrown at you because that’s what you do every Saturday.”
Ganley started refereeing as a 17-year-old, officiating men’s rugby while still at Kamo High School.
Rugby was the first sport she played, alongside her two brothers. “Mainly for convenience – so Mum and Dad could chuck us all in one team,” she says.
“At intermediate and high school there were no girls rugby teams so I naturally fell back into netball.
“But when I was 17, they had a ‘You make the call’ course for refereeing, offering a whole bunch of NCEA credits and a day off school, so that’s how I ended up getting back into rugby.”
Ganley saw the game through new eyes, and it brought her closer to her rugby-mad dad, who came to every match she reffed across the north.
Her rise was rapid to the national referees squad, where she learned from experienced female referees like the pioneering Nicky Inwood (who was a high performance referee reviewer at last year’s Rugby World Cup).
“We had some really fantastic women who were facilitating and growing the rest of us,” Ganley says. “It’s quite contagious when you’re in a niche group of girls doing it. No one else understands the challenges you can face as a referee, and especially as a female referee."
She was just 21 when she stood in the middle for a women’s NPC match, between Manawatu and Taranaki, back in 2013.
Three years later, Ganley became the first non-resident female to officiate at the Hong Kong Sevens – as part of an interchange programme between North Harbour and Hong Kong referees.
But just before Covid invaded out shores in 2020, Ganley decided to stop refereeing and focus on her career off the field.
“It was a tough decision, but I’m one of those people who’s all or nothing – if I commit to something I’ll throw everything into it. And I couldn’t give that to refereeing at the time,” she says.
She moved to Wellington with her job, but is now back in Auckland working for Hobson Wealth Partners as an anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism analyst.
“I specialise in checking out the people and the money that’s coming into our company and making sure it’s from the right people. And once they have the money with us, making sure they’re doing the right things with it,” she explains.
“I love structure and I love rules. So it’s a natural swing between both work and rugby.”
(She's also studying part-time towards a Masters in Business Administration, around team leadership and dealing with change - new skills she's using on and off the field).
Well ensconced in her career, and with understanding bosses, Ganley returned to refereeing last year just in time for the Farah Palmer Cup, and ended up officiating the final between Canterbury and Auckland. She's moved to the next level with Aupiki.
“I’ve been reffing a lot of the Aupiki girls since 2013, and we’ve grown up together,” she says. “It’s such an honour to be sharing the field with the best rugby players in the world.
“I’m out there now because I enjoy it, I love the game, I love these girls. I can now see the funny side of things that happen in games - and I'm in the right headspace to enjoy it. Most of these players are absolute professionals, but you can have a bit of a laugh with them.”
She’s amazed at how far the women’s game has progressed in the past three years – especially after the Rugby World Cup.
“The step-up in skill level and the style of rugby these girls are playing is incredible. And with any step-up, everything happens that little bit faster. So as a referee at breakdowns or set pieces, your processes have to be a lot quicker," Ganley says.
To keep up with the play, Ganley - who also refs men's games at North Harbour - is grateful for the support she gets from her own referee coach and a personalised strength and conditioning programme.
Ganley is mentored by Brendon Pickerill, a professional referee for New Zealand Rugby.
“He helps me with my processes and with preparing me. The knowledge he has is incredible,” she says. “The best thing I’ve learned from him is listening to and learning about things that are relevant to your game.
“There’s so much white noise around - in a game you could pick up 20 different things that you could do better. But going into the next game, you need to pick up on the things that will make you a better referee and work on those, instead of trying to do everything at once.”
North Harbour referees Brendon Pickerill and Natarsha Ganley are working together to help grow her game
She also works with Simon Jones, the strength and conditioning coach for the Otago Highlanders, who has her doing running, speed and gym work, but also focusing heavily on allowing her body to recover after every game.
Ganley is quick to point out being a top-level referee involves more than just one game a week. After her “eight-to-five” job, she trains, and most weekends she travels to a different corner of the country.
“Then there’s a lot of homework – writing your review of the games and then preparation for the next weekend. You don’t just show up for a game on Saturday,” she says.
“You go through every single decision you made on the field, if you got that wrong, how do you improve your processes to get it right next time. It’s constant development.”
And there's further development underway to introduce more players to refereeing.
As part of Sport New Zealand's Covid response, Rugby NZ benefited from a $400,000 grant to invest in women’s refereeing. They've employed top referee Maggie Cogger-Orr as a full-time women’s referee development officer (right now she's in Europe to referee two Women’s Six Nations matches over the next fortnight).
With the help of Ashley Stanley at the NZ Rugby Players Association, they created a two-year scholarship initiative for players interested in exploring refereeing.
“We liked the idea because we’d had a lot of success with players like Rebecca Mahoney, Tiana Ngawati, Selica Winiata making the transition to be very good referees," says Bryce Lawrence, who's led the project.
The first three scholars are Cottrell, a former Black Fern, and fellow FPC players Chloe Sampson from Taranaki and Kaitlin Bates from Hawkes Bay.
“Krysten [Cottrell] is going to take it slowly to fit it around her rugby commitments - we really encourage them to keep playing,” Lawrence says. “Chloe has been playing and refereeing but now she’s fully committing to refereeing, and Kaitlin is going to play a whole range of different sports and learn to referee as well.”
There's still a lot of work to do to grow the number of female referees. There are around 100 in New Zealand rugby now – a number that’s remained stagnant for a few years, Lawrence says. But he hopes the predicted boom in female player numbers could also lift the number of refs. “Our aim over the next 10 years is to have 300 female match officials,” he says.
Naturally, Ganley would like to referee a test match in the not-to-distant future. “It’s a dream to do something on the international stage and with the introduction of the women’s World XV tournament this year, there will be some amazing opportunities," she says. "All you can do is be the best you can be, continue growing, making sure you’re fit, keeping your mind on rugby. So if an opportunity comes up the next week, you’re ready to go.”
She’s crossing the Tasman at Easter to referee a Super W game between the Force and the Rebels. “During the World Cup, I went to some of the Wallaroos training sessions and reffed them, so it will be good to see some of those girls again,” she says.
Watching the World Cup from the stands, Ganley was inspired.
“It was just such a rush, the adrenalin, the atmosphere was electric. That’s what you want at the end of the day, is that feeling,” she says. “It’s definitely helped to keep pushing me.”
* The finals of Super Rugby Aupiki will be played at FMG Stadium Waikato in Hamilton on Saturday: Blues v Hurricanes Poua in the play-off for third at 11.35am; Chiefs Manawa v Matatū in the grand final at 2.05pm. All games are live on Sky and Prime.
