Referees Corner – Issue 7 – 2024/25 – Stormers

Welcome to another edition of referees corner and a very warm welcome to today’s URC  game between Leinster and DHL Stormers. 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 first time refereeing Leinster at home. 

He is ably assisted by our colleagues from the Ulster Society Chris Busby, Jonathan Erskine and Colin Stanley in the TMO box. Barry O’Keeffe is today’s match time keeper. 

A.J. DeLacy RIP

It is great sadness that we received the news of the passing of the former President of the Association A.J. DeLacy. Tony had been a great servant to Leinster Referees for many a year, including the role of 1997/98 President and winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award (Ham Lambert) back in 2014/15, as well as being Leinster Branch President in 2002. 

He dedicated the best part of the past 10 years to evaluating and bettering referees and put a lot of his own time and efforts into getting assessing and valuating to where it is today. He was also a great promoter of women in refereeing and helped many of our women referees in their careers. He was also heavily involved in the redevelopment of the stand at Energia Park. He will be remembered fondly by many, spanning many seasons and will be sorely missed. May he Rest in Peace. 

Mid Season Seminar

Our mid season seminar took place on Wednesday last. Our president Martin Farrelly introduced a great session with two guest speakers, firstly from Adam Foy, Head of Performance Analysis with the Auckland Blues. Adam has also worked with the IRFU, Munster Rugby and the New Zealand Maoris. He shared with us the referee preparation the Blues undertake on a weekly basis, something that is done by so many teams around Europe. Following on from Adam, Owen Keane then presented on de-escalation skills for Match Officials. Owen is one of our own active referees and this session was particularly timely and covered an essential skill set. We had a great turnout of over 150 officials at the session. We’re looking forward to seeing the tools learning being put into action. 

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.