Training & Development – Preferred Options Papers
The Society’s first “Preferred Options” (PO) paper was published in 2020, many more have been added since.
The idea of the papers is to help referees and assessors work towards taking a more consistent approach and to continually improve the refereeing of individual officials of all levels and in the Society as a whole. For a full rationale of the programme of PO documents, please scroll down to after the list of POs.
The full set of papers is listed below (click on the topic to download):
- PO#28 – Law Changes July 2024 ***NEW***
- PO#27 – Refereeing open play – the kicking game
- PO#26 – Focus and Concentration in Refereeing
- PO#25 – Refereeing the in-goal area
- PO#24 – Acting as an Assistant Referee (AR) with powers
- PO#23 – Tackle Height Domestic Law Variation
- PO#22 – Refereeing the Breakdown
- PO#21 – Managing Refereeing Trends at Professional Level with Reference to the “Community Game”
- PO#20 – Refereeing the Head Contact Process (HCP) in the Community Game
- PO#19 – In review
- PO#18 – Sanctions and Dealing with Foul Play Plus Managing Yellow and Red Cards
- PO#17 – Refereeing the Global Law Trials January 2023
- PO#16 – The Maul: (being reviewed)
- PO#15 – Safeguarding and Child Protection plus Supplement: RFU Match Official Safeguarding Guidelines
- PO#14 – Understanding, Playing and Communicating Advantage
- PO#13 – Communication in Managing Conflict
- PO#12 – Communicating with Players and Coaches
- PO#11 – Game Values
- PO#10 – Characteristics of a Manchester Society Referee
- PO#9 – Characteristics of a Manchester Society Assessor (Adviser)
- PO#8 – Refereeing the Lineout
- PO#7 – What does good advising look like?
- PO#6 – Starts, Restarts and Offside in Open Play
- PO#5 – Refereeing the Scrum
- PO#4 – Positioning *** Revised March 2022 ***
- PO#3 – Preparation and the Briefing
- PO#2 – Maintenance and Management of Technical Areas
- PO#1 – Authority and Gaining Respect
In addition, new self-evaluation checklists for referees and assessors are also available.
If you have any questions on the matters covered by the papers or you have a suggestion for a paper, please do contact your grade level coordinator or Jonny Cartwright (Chairman of Training and Development) at madreftd@gmail.com .
Rationale for the Programme of Preferred Options Documents:
- Enhance enjoyment of the game for referees, advisers and players.
- Address the many and varied modes/styles of refereeing currently witnessed in the Society.
- Draw on the experience and knowledge of all the Society’s referees.
- Reaffirm that the aims of the methods and strategies in the PO documents were “preferred” and not necessarily obligatory.
- Acknowledge that the game has changed over time, will continue to do so and changes will be addressed in the programme.
- Emphasise where issues of safety are considerations.
- Acknowledge that one of the joys of the game is its unpredictability and that referees need to respond quickly and sometimes “outside the box”.
- Create a basic library of advice, which can be referenced by all levels of referee and adviser.
- Reduce the variations in advice sometimes suffered by referees.
- Serve as a source of training material for all levels of referee.
- Particularly, provide advisers with a bank of “default” advice, which advises them what to look for in a referee’s game.
- Serve as a target for consistency in approach, encompassing the game in hand (referee and adviser) and also across the Society (referee and referee).
- Assist players and clubs to understand what the referee expects to see in a game and how this can be managed.
- Provide supplementary material to back up post-match discussions.
- Make practical references to law rather than always referring to “Laws of the Game”.
- Interpret variations to law and guidelines and emphasise the practical issues surrounding these.