The Angry Ref - "You Like Me. You Really Like Me. Don’t You?"

Have you been reading this?  Are you taking this advice to heart?  I think maybe you might be because I haven’t had much to write about lately.  I’ll be honest, a lot of my previous columns have been drawn from experiences early in my refereeing career.  In an unguarded moment you may even catch me admitting that some of my frustrations were related to being new.  But I’d never admit that here.

Besides, if you look back most of what makes The Angry Ref angry is when players focus more on being clever than on playing rugby and that has little to do with my previous newness.  So many of you divide your focus in such an inexplicable way.  Imagine if you focused solely on the game?  Imagine the heights to which you could rise.  Are you imagining it?  Can you see yourself using that cleverness to figure out how to play to what the ref is or isn’t calling and exploiting it to your advantage rather than running around whining?  I can see it.  It’s beautiful

Help a young rugger go down under

Since starting a rugby life, I've been able to meet a lot of ruggers who embrace the sport with passion.  One such player I recently met hopes that his will take him to great heights.

Jordan Torres is a 16 year old lad who plays for New York Rugby Club on the U19 team. He lives in the Bronx with his mum, a single parent.  He had a rough year or two at school, but through his natural perseverance and hard work, he turned his grades around - and made the honor roll in all his classes!

NYC: Annual Four Leaf 15s Rugby Tournament, this Saturday 27th March

The Village Lions RFC will be hosting their annual Four Leaf 15s Rugby Tournament this Saturday over on Randalls Island. With 60 teams competing, its one of the biggest rugby tournaments in the USA.

Matches are running all day, kicking off at 8 am.  With Mens Club, Mens Social, Womens, Mens College and Womens College Divisions, there are a lot of games to see and its free to spectate.

I'll be at the tournament on coaching duties looking after the Lions Womens team.  Swing by the games and see hi!

Also, for the second year in the row we'll celebrate the Four Leaf 15s with an epic rugby pub crawl through the Lower East Side.  Hit the bars as soon as games finish and enjoy drink specials everywhere.

NYC: Village Lions Jello Wrestling Competition tonight!

The Leonas will be holding their first ever Jello Wrestling Competition tonight at Van Diemens

(383 3rd Ave, New York, N.Y 10016).  The festivities will start at 7:30pm and the wrestling will begin at 8pm.

Each competition will have 3 two minute rounds and the winner will advance. If neither competitor is pinned after 3 rounds, winner is chosen by crowd cheer.  Outside people are more than welcome to wrestle.

$15 at the door gets you your free first drink and the following drink specials:

• $3 domestic beer
• $4 mixed drinks
• $5 glass of wine

More details can be found on their Facebook page here.

Adelaide Sevens: Key Action Extended highlights

The Eagles made it to their first cup final this weekend down under.  They unfortunately lost to Samoa 38-10 but had a cracking tournament overall.

In case you didn't get a chance to see it, here are the highlights.

The Angry Ref - “You Wanna Go Old Man?”

Here’s the thing about reffing old boys: they think they know everything.  They also think nothing’s changed in the last 100 years.  Whenever it was that they played their best rugby is when they stopped reading the law book.  It’s like when my grandmother is shocked at the cost of something.   “What?  But when we cremated your grandfather it only cost $200.”  Yeah grandma, that was 1976.  Guess what old-timer, they allow lifting in the lineout now.  Sure, some old boys know their stuff.  I once reffed an old boys match wherein one of the players had been a more than adequate ref in his own right.  The problem was he was so quick with his tongue he made it look for all the world like he was calling the game and I was just following along.  Damn old boys.  Even when they do know what’s going they still make me look bad.  But the following experience is more typical.
 

The Angry Ref - “The Only One Who Could Never Teach Me”

So far this column has mostly been used to respond to the abuse refs take from players on a week-to-week basis but how could we maintain our credibility unless we were willing to crack one of our own?  Today I plan to do just that.  Of course I plan to do it from a ref’s perspective which means none of the things players usually gripe about.  After all players know what their chief complaints are and ref’s know that player complaints are usually based on ignorance of what refs are looking at.  We refs can be a pretty understanding lot when it comes to assessing our colleague’s performance.  We take into account the ref’s experience, the type of match, the ref’s goals etc.  So it takes a special ref to really get under our skin.

Tribeca Film Festival to showcase Finish Rugby Documentary

The films for this years Tribeca Film Festival in New York city has just been announced and will include a Finish rugby documentary called Freetime Machos.  

Directed by Mika Ronkainen, the film follows two friends, Matti and Mikko, and their team (Finland’s worst amateur rugby team) as they try to end the season with just a single win.

Tickets will be going on sale shortly (more details here) and check out the trailer below.

The Angry Ref - “To the left. To the left.”

Hey coach how ya doing?  Great.  Great.  I’ll try to keep this short.   OK here’s the thing, you know how a lot of coaches tell their teams that the coaches do their work on Tuesdays and Thursdays but on Saturdays their job is done and it’s up to the players?   

Well it’s true.   You see coach in order to have an official league game we need thirty players and a ref.   But we don’t need you. So my advice is to calm down and think before you yell something at the ref. We can go on just fine without you on the sideline.  You see what I’m saying coach?  Great.   
Thanks.