Referees Corner – Issue 15 – 2024/25 – Glasgow

A very warm welcome to another edition of referees corner for this URC semi final against Glasgow. Today’s match referee is Andrea Piardi. Andrea Piardi is an Italian rugby union referee. He is the first game official from his country to have refereed in both the Six Nations and the Rugby Championship. He was born in Brescia in 1992. Having previously refereed in the Italian Top12, he made his Pro14 refereeing debut in a match between Munster and the Southern Kings on 15 February 2019. 

In 2021, he was announced as an assistant referee for the 2021 Six Nations Championship for the match between Scotland and Wales. In 2021, Piardi refereed two matches in the 2023 Rugby World Cup qualifiers Americas section, refereeing Uruguay’s matches against Chile and Brazil on 17 July and 25 July respectively. On 19 June 2022 he refereed a match between England and the Barbarian F.C. selection. He also refereed Ireland v Australia last November. This is his second time refereeing Leinster at home, having refereed the game against Cardiff earlier this year.

He is ably assisted by Craig Evans of Wales, Gianluca Gnecchi of Italy and Matteo Liperini.

The 2024/25 season has been an amazing season for the Leinster Rugby Referees. This has been our busiest season to date, with a 10% increase in activities compared to last year, following an 11% rise the previous season. We now have more active referees than ever before, supported by a committed network of mentors, evaluators, development groups, committees, and other dedicated members.  During the season we made over 5,565 appointments.

The trial members have now been managed by Michael Carroll for 3 seasons. He is stepping down at the end of the season, and we would like to both thank & congratulate him. He has been instrumental in putting in place a process that allows trainee referees to progress, which is transparent and fair. The new referee workshop was held last August in Westmanstown, and we pursued our continued policy of interviewing applicants before inviting them to the workshops. Approx. fifty candidates attended this.  Significant support was provided particularly from the mentors and evaluators, detailed below, in getting these individuals up to a sufficient standard at a minimum level of under 16, in accordance with the IRFU regulations, to enable being admitted as a member of Leinster Rugby Referees. Sean Gallagher played a particularly significant role in driving this.  In all, 50 individuals started the process and 34 have become new Full Members now in the panels. 

This season 30 mentors have completed reports, resulting in 201 reports to date. Most of these reports have been focussed on trainee referees or recently admitted referees.  The balance of the mentor reports was distributed over referees refereeing at Youth level (Panel Y) and referees aged over 60 returning to refereeing, or at a Panel managers request. 

Mentoring is now a cornerstone of trainee referee education and the development of referees. Barry O’Keefe has managed our coaching function for a number of years and continues to provide an important function to our development referees. This is done using a combination of ref cam and attendance at matches, we deployed 11 coaches who issued a total of 43 reports covering 11 referees. 

That’s it for Referees Corner for this season. Have a great summer and thanks for reading.

Want to get involved? 

Referees provide a vital function in servicing all levels of the game. Refereeing is also a fantastic hobby and is increasingly becoming a genuine alternative to playing the game.

Whether you have aspirations to referee at the highest level or to referee locally, there is a place for you. There are excellent support structures in place to develop referees and a thriving social aspect too.

Feel free to make contact with the Leinster Rugby Referees at hayley.whyte@leinsterrugby.ie  If you are interested in becoming a referee get in contact with us through our Facebook, our website www.leinsterrugbyreferees.ie or through X @leinsterreferee.