HARD WORK PAYS OFF
Paul Bretz has been named to the International Panel by USARRA. There are four referees in this group, ranked in order: Kevin McCaslin, Graeme Bullen, Al Klemp and Paul.
Aruna Ranaweera was named to the Development Panel. This is not the same as the old Drip program, but is a list of referees just below the National Panel. This promises Aruna advanced consideration for national appointments.
The Pacific Coast territory was given an opportunity to nominate referees for this panel. The Pacific Coast referee administration chose not to nominate anyone. Aruna received this recognition ‘accidentally’, by the fact that the quality of his refereeing happened to be known to representatives of some of the other territories.
Congratulations to both of these dedicated and talented referees. May they fly from strength to strength.
You might have noticed that Paul refereed the NA4 match between the Hawks and Canada West this past Saturday, an early dividend of his newly-recognized status!
REFS NEEDED
Please respond if you are interested in refereeing these events; we need a referee head count prior to the competitions.
Saturday, July 29
Fresno Sevens money tournament
Friday, August 4
Samoan Flag Day Sevens money tournament
At Crocker Amazon park in San Francisco
And don’t forget, of course, the Air Pacific Marist Tonik Palo Alto Summer Sevens Series, the 2006 finale at Greer Park on Saturday, August 5.
KICKING BACK IN-GOAL
Our data have been corrected. There were actually 355 tries scored at the Palo Alto Sevens on July 8.
(We reported here last week that it was 218, but that did not include the women’s and high school games.)
That’s about 120 tries per pitch. If it takes even thirty seconds per conversion waiting for someone to get the ball before the restart, that’s a hour per pitch that can be saved by having the kicks taken from the in-goal or beyond the dead-ball line.
PACIFIC COAST SEVENS QUALIFIER IN PALO ALTO
Several teams played for seeding at the Pacific Coast national qualifier this past Saturday.
Diablo Gaels and SFGG went through pool play undefeated, with the Gaels winning the ‘final’.
The Park City, Utah, tournament this weekend is open to all teams. We expect Diablo, SFGG, the Olympic Club and San Mateo to make the trip.
Best of luck to all of NorCal’s Sevens ruggers!
YOUR HELP REQUESTED WITH THE CIPP DATABASE
We need your help in reconciling USA Rugby’s database on participants.
Please review the two lists below to see if your CIPP registration is recorded. If is not, we need to hear from you with: your CIPP number and when you paid for CIPP and R&L (if you did it on-line you’ll have a credit card payment you can reference).
All referees should, of course, have CIPP and R&L registration for the current year; otherwise you have no liability coverage and are not qualified to be receiving match assignments. In fact, our society has potential liability if we allow you to referee.
USA Referee Manager Ed Todd called to our attention the following list of NorCal members who have paid both CIPP and R&L for 2006. It was compiled by their membership folks:
Ian Baggott
Edward Barfels
Paul Berman
Bruce Bernstein
David Buckey
Jamie Burke
John Coppinger
John Cullom
Matt Eason
Kathy Flores
Ed Gardner
Ronald Gore
Geordie Hawkins
Rob Hendrickson
Larry Herbert
Vicki Hudson
Fred Khasigian
Rachel Lawton
Gary Malpas
Paul Negus
Tina Nesberg
Bart Nielsen
Bryan Porter
Ray Thompson
John Tomasin
Bob Tustin
JC Van Staden
Russ Wilkening
You will see that many, many, many of our referees are not listed. But it is obviously inaccurate, which was proven to Ed Todd by pointing out that his name was not on the list (which included the whole country).
This list is from the membership page of the USA Rugby website. It has more names but doesn’t inspire any more confidence overall than the first one:
319573 Baggott, Ian
267891 Berman, Paul
206588 Bernstein, Bruce
204231 Bretz, Paul
310292 Buckey, David
202099 Bukowski, Lois
202433 Byrnes, Bryant
202434 Carter, Melvin
266472 Chance, Rod
202435 Crenshaw, James
216825 Davis, Samuel
207899 Eason, Matthew
197938 Gardner, Edward
319586 Gore, Ronald
152705 Hart, Deborah
269124 Hawkins, Geordie
188846 Hendrickson, Robert
201454 Hudson, Victoria
235026 Latu, Atonio
266246 Lawton, Rachel
241975 Leisek, Charles
201522 Malone, Michael
201522 Malone, Michael
319576 Malpas, Gary
127571 Miller, David
308985 Palu, Epalahame
201582 Pohlman, John
202445 Pope, David
201584 Porter, Bryan
209785 Ranaweera, Aruna
204797 Reagle, Sam
143601 Rodman, Bo
269496 Saccomanno, Joseph
260499 Schwartz, Raymond
201311 Smith, Dixon
201313 Smith, Peter
214140 Stumer, Bjorn
213386 Thompson, Raymond
201343 Todd, Edwin
176068 Todd-Schwartz, Kat
319583 Tustin, Robert
279688 Villierme, Michael
202446 Williamson, David
303610 Williamson, David
202447 Wilson, Giles
241979 Wood, Scott
Again and please, if you have registered and paid and are not on either of these lists, we need to hear from you.
Thank you.
THIS WEEK'S PHOTO
Tevis Vandergriff visited us on exchange from the Southeast Rugby Referee Society for the tournament at Palo Alto. Tevis was the perfect exchange candidate to come here: he lives in Charlotte, North Carolina and played for Charlotte, which means he played in the NCRFU and is a member of the NCRRS. And, being born in Louisiana, he’s from the Pelican State!
It was awful hot Saturday. Everyone wilted as soon as the last whistle was blown. Here under the Pelican Coop are David Williamson, Tony Latu, John Pohlman, Isaac Caselis, Jim Crenshaw, John Coppinger, Tevis and his host for the weekend Pete Smith.
HAIL, PELICUS!
For the Senate
Pelicus Scriptoris
