Mid Canterbury Rugby Union

Hi Everyone
We wanted to share some important news with you across the MCRU rugby community which relates to our referees. In 2025 we saw the lowest number of referees across several years in the union with only 11 registered referees capable of delivering referee performances in club rugby.

With the challenge laid down in front of us, as a union, group of referees, club delegates and local sporting codes alongside Sport Mid Canterbury, we sought to understand what were some barriers to people refereeing, how can we encourage new people to referee, how can we support them and how do we buy them the time to build skills and competences so we don’t lose them to the game from poor experiences.

What did we come up with?

This year you will see several new referees, we are currently around 23 registered referees (and hopefully more to come) who have completed refereeing or associate refereeing courses, working to grow their skills & competences and be part of the wider referee team.

As part of the process to support new referees we launched our new ‘GREEN JERSEYS’ for First and Second year referees. As part of this process, we have partnered with our sponsor ANZCO and Sport Mid Canterbury to deliver a clear message to our community to ‘KEEP IT POSITIVE’.

We know that positive sidelines, positive rugby interactions lead to growth, engagement and connection, and we want this for our referees and especially our new referees who are trying hard to play a part in our community game.

What we ask of you is to get behind them and support them, and if you are interested in getting involved, contact [email protected] and we will be in touch on what a referee journey might look like.

Thanks Kenny

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