The 11th season of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) will kick off on August 17th, 2019, and this year’s competition will again be a key component of the USA Rugby Referee Development Program. The program is focused on providing consistency across all matches by supporting the development of a small group of match officials and transparent communication between WPL team staff and the match official group.
The team consists of 10 high performance referees from across North America, six of whom are returning members from last year’s team. They will be supported by Referee Coaches and Performance Reviewers. Amanda Cox will return as Referee Manager. The group represents 13 different referee societies from the United States and Canada (full list of team members below).
The program uses an online referee review system for game review and grading referee performance. Referees will receive a performance review at the beginning and the end of each season. They will work one-on-one with a referee coach across the entire season. Each week the match official team will review games and identify trends across the league and discuss difficult decisions. The goal of the match official group is to foster the growth of women’s rugby in the USA by providing a consistent platform to develop teams, week-by-week.
One of the new referees this year is part of a new North American partnership for elite referee development. Former Canadian International player, Julieanne Zussman, will be joining to referee team, “I’m thrilled to be part of the WPL this season. It’s a unique opportunity to be part of a high-performance team of referees who are eager to share feedback and work together to make a quality competition for the players. I’m grateful for the support from Rugby Canada, USA Rugby and RAN. This collaboration across borders is important to continue to grow women’s rugby in North America.”
The Match Official program will run similar to last year, although this year sees the addition of Performance Reviewers. This will add a quantitative measurement to the referee performances. The group enjoyed much success last year, which culminated in Amelia Luciano and Amanda Cox being selected to attend World Rugby’s High-Performance camp in Stellenbosch this past May. Luciano has since refereed her first World Rugby test match and is scheduled to do another in September.
Cox noted, “Attending the Stellenbosch camp and having Amelia actively doing test matches is a fantastic opportunity for women’s rugby in the United States. It makes us absolutely certain that the way we are interpreting the game meets the highest standards for rugby officiating. We hope that this enables us to make the WPL a place that the Eagles (and future Eagles) can grow their skills to succeed on the world stage”.
The match official group attributes their success to the open and honest communication between team members and also with the league. Each week, the team coaches have access to the online referee reviews. Cox sends a weekly update to the league, and coaches are welcome to contact her at any time if they need a law interpretation or an on-field decision explained. It’s a system that relies heavily on the ability of match officials to accept feedback and make changes. The relationship the referees have with their referee coach is integral to admitting errors and turning them into action plans that foster improvement.
Referee Kat Roche added “It's really an honor to be selected as part of the WPL referee team for another season. When you're involved in a small competition (10 teams) you get the chance to really go in-depth with how the teams play their game and watch the same teams play week in/week out. The National team is also made up of a lot of WPL stars, so getting the opportunity to referee these elite athletes regularly is like a dream come true. I'm excited to work with my peer group and with the coaches throughout the season as well. Last year we became close as a team and were really able to root for each other to succeed in the game, and I think that kind of positivity helps us all grow”.
| Name | Role | Society |
|---|---|---|
| Lee Bryant | Referee | NorCal |
| Joe Burpoe | Referee | SERRS |
| Steven Fenaroli | Referee | NorCal |
| Steve Gore | Referee | RMRR |
| Amelia Luciano | Referee | NERRS |
| Jenny Liu | Referee | RMRR |
| Michelle O'Brien | Referee | PNRRS |
| Kat Roche | Referee | TX |
| Haylee Slaughter | Referee | FL |
| Julieanne Zussman | Referee | Canada |
| Rosalind Anderson | Coach | METNY |
| Greg Gilliam | Coach | METNY |
| Lee Johnson | Coach | SoCal |
| Olivia Rogers | Coach | Mich |
| Wendy Young | Coach | TX |
| Peter Watson | PR | NERRS |
| David Haines | PR | MidSouth |
| Bob Hausler | PR | Potomac |
| Amanda Cox | Manager | SERRS |
