Referees to be schooled at Stellenbosch
A new course for the development of referees is to be introduced at Stellenbosch University next year.
The famous university which has given so much to rugby will now establish a referees’ academy “to train young referees to attain a very high standard of refereeing and through that, minimize their mistakes on the field, thereby creating young, competent referees who will serve the game of rugby proudly”.
Called the Maties Referees Academy its aim “is to develop and train young referees to become excellent, accurate referees and to promote refereeing as a professional part of the game. The Academy offers young rugby enthusiasts an entry into the world of professional rugby by realising the ideal of becoming a professional, career referee”.
The impetus has come from Hendrik Greyvenstein, a former referee from the Eastern Province, who moved to Stellenbosch University where he has been coaching referees and has become a national referees coach.
His immediate concern is the koshuis (residence) league at Stellenbosch which has over 50 teams in ardent competition. Each week there are 26 matches. This will give the referees a great chance to develop their refereeing in real matches – “in the cockpit”, as Greyvenstein expresses it. There are also league matches and school matches available.
The academy offers a nine-month course with academic (laws, analysis, mental and physical development), practical (real matches) and high performance (medical and scientific support) components. The students will stay in his NBettling and have access to injury management and rehab.
The staff for the course is impressive:
Manager: Hendrik Greyvenstein
Referees coach: Marius Franken, the former Currie Cup referee who has been running referees in Singapore
Medical support: Dr Pierre Viviers
Fitness: Warren Adams
Vision: Grant van Velden
Consultants: André Watson (moderator/consultant), South Africa’s refereeing boss, Tappe Henning (moderator/consultant), who is on the International Rugby Board’s referees selection panel, the former Springbok prop Balie Swart who is the scrum consultant, Dennis Immelman, the former provincial referee who is an IRB assessor, and Professor Justus Potgieter, a former provincial referee and a member of the faculty if Human Movement Science at the University who will look to mental training.
