For many years Nomad Sports Club usually had only one referee who would ref, leave then get replaced. These included Mike Hurley, Graham Munro and a few others.. Whether he was good or not he was usually criticized as being totally incompetent, despite the fact that none of our players had much of a grasp of the laws. So when the Manila 10’s was organized we looked to our big brothers at the HK Referees Society and held out a carrot: a paid weekend in Sin City in return for a little on-field antics. Some took it seriously, a few succumbed to the temptations of P. Burgos St. and showed up worse for wear, but in general they were well managed by a referee manager/assessor, in recent years Dougie Shearer.  Recently we had Matt Oakley from the Singapore RFU also assisting but he has now been appointed IRB Manager for the Arabian Gulf and won’t make it this year.

As time went on we decided to train and incorporate some local referees, so with the assistance of Bernard Fienberg, Referee Manager for the HKRFU, we conducted two Level One referee courses in Manila. Some, like Steve Doleman and Frank Evatt, had previous experience, others like Jay Savage, Phil Gittus and Richard Radier were players reaching (or past) their playing days and looking to stay in the game. It has turned out to be a great learning experience for the local refs, and allowed us to develop more participation in the running of this side of the tournament.

This year we have as local referees Phil Gittus, Jay Savage, Richard Radier, Mark Pressley from Clark and Phil Mounsay from Cebu. Richard is the Referee Coordinator for the Manila 10’s.

As usual, players and supporters will second guess the refs, but the standard of refereeing for the 10’s remains high and improving.