If you've never heard of UR7s before, they are essentially a 7s academy that operates across the country, delivering training, coaching, competitions and more to young rugby players interested in developing their skills in rugby 7s.
The team at 7s Referee provides not only top quality match official support from a range of professional and experienced rugby referees who are extremely skilled and experienced in the game of rugby 7s, we also welcome young match officials into our team to provide the same level of dedicated training and coaching to them as the team at UR7s does for the players.
Each referee receives assessment and feedback during their games and they watch back any videos of their perfmance to maintain their own self-awareness of their performance (here Chris and Harry both review their games at a recent tournament).
In this our third season for the team, we have given some of the more experienced young officials added responsibility in organising the team, allocating them to games and managing their needs and training at each event. Chris and Tom have both
worked exceptionally hard in their added roles which has allowed more seasoned members to focus more on coaching and developing those who are new to the team or have asked for a trial so that we can ensure quality and standardisation of officiating across all of the referees.
We were also very fortunate to welcome Profession Game referee, Karl Dickson to the
the team for the UR7s flagship event to round off three very busy weeks on the road with them. Karl is not only a great ambassador for the game and proved a welcome addition to the young players who have seen him referee in the Gallagher Premiership, European Rugby and even the Rugby World Cup, but he worked hard with the rest of the team during their review sessions, giving sage advice and tips to improve.