England Touch Association - Annual Report 2014 England Touch Association - Annual Report 2014 | Page 47

ETA Annual Report 2014 was also the first year of England’s involvement in Touch Europe Junior Referee Academy, which proved to be successful and it also opened the gateway to the involvement of youth in the sport. Course Presenters England hosted a Referee Retention and Recruitment Course (RRRC) in early 2014 which saw another 4 England referees attend to be accredited course presenters. England now has:     12 x Level 1 course presenters 3 x Level 2 course presenters 12 x Level 1 referee coaches 1 Level 2 referee coach NTS/CTS Events The NTS/CTS events with a new structure for 2014 was always going to be challenging from the beginning. Up to 8 fields running all day – referees became the most valuable resource England Touch has. The referees were fantastic and stepped up to take on the challenge, the new format as exhausting as it was still was proven to be popular amongst players and referees alike, there is more teams and people, differing styles of play, a greater variety of skill and a game of touch to meet all referee abilities! The benefit of having a minimum of two referee coaches present at each event has helped to strengthen the events in the eyes of the European Referee Touch community with many referees travelling to attend our events. Throughout the year, we’ve managed a full complement of referees to help officiate the days. We’ve continued with our decision to use player referees and the perseverance of this has started to pay dividends. The standard of player referees has increased dramatically in the last twelve month and will continue to do so into the future. The more equipped our referees are, whether they be full time or player referees, the better and faster the game will develop. 47 England Touch Association