Northern NSW Football held a Referees Development Camp at the 2024 Champion of Champions tournament in Coffs Harbour earlier this month.
Twenty four referees participated in the week-long camp with the aim of building and developing their skills as match officials.
Referee coaches carried out assessments throughout each day of the competition to evaluate each match official’s performance. There was a debrief of the day's officiating performances each evening before the delivery of coaching presentations.
Presentations were given on:
body language, confidence and concentration
positioning, movement and anticipation
severity of fouls and tactical fouls
assistant referee alignment and movement
teamwork between match officials
managing difficulties with players and the technical areas
the NNSWF Referee Development Pathway
NNSWF Referee Manager Brad Carlin was delighted with the camp’s success.
“The aims of our referee camps are to provide consistent, quality coaching to develop young match officials from across our member zones and to identify those referees who have the talent and commitment to potentially be an elite match official of the future,” Carlin said.
“There were many outstanding performances during this year’s camp, but what impressed our referee coaches the most was the clear improvement that every participant showed in responding so well to the coaching we gave them.
“I would like to thank the referee coaches Riley Kirkaldy, Layton Farley, Flynn Cope, Ray Ashbourne, Jason Hillier and Jess Hjort for their hard work throughout the tournament.
“Thank you to all of the member zones for their ongoing support of the referee development camps.”
The top performing referees during the tournament were appointed to referee the grand final matches.
Matilda Armstrong was awarded Female Referee of the Tournament, while Harrison Coleman was awarded Male Referee of the Tournament.
