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TALENT GROUP REFEREES VISIT WARWICK

Thirteen Talent Group Referees were invited to Warwick for the recent Select Group meeting

Steve Bennett took the next session and he used all of his experience to advise on positional sense.

ProZone were on hand to show statistics of the referees who had taken charge of a Championship game and compiled a slide of each one detailing his position at the taking of corner kicks from both sides of the field.

Interestingly several referees were not aware of the trends that were evident in their positioning, however overall their positioning at corner kicks appeared to be very satisfactory. Steve also passed on his methods of dealing with defensive wall situations suggested ways of communicating with players in these crucial areas of the field.

After lunch it was back to work as Steve Dunn, Training and Development Talents Group Manager PGMOL, presented a session giving The Talent Group the opportunity to analyse a selection of DVD clips submitted by the group from each of their games so far this season.

The clips were of incidents that had caused the individual referees problems and the aim was for the rest of the Group to offer suggestions on how the situation may have been handled differently.

There was honest opinion expressed and given that the group only meet on several occasions each year it helped bond the group and hopefully will encourage them to share experiences on a regular basis.

The next day the Talent Group endured a Yo-Yo Fitness assessment alongside the Select Group Referees. Under the watchful eye of Matt and Simon all referees were encouraged to run to exhaustion giving the sports scientists valuable information on the individual fitness levels of the referees in both groups.

There was just time for a 45 minutes stretching session before the meeting drew to a close.

Steve Dunn reflected on the two day event:

“The benefits to the young group of referees was enormous and I would like to thank the Select Group referees for the manner in which my Referees were accepted and the very professional way in which the experience they have gained over many years of refereeing high profile Premier League and International games was shared with their young colleagues.

“My thanks also to Steve Bennett for his time and energy in his excellent Movement and Positioning Presentation, and to Martin Bland for compiling such a comprehensive list of DVD clips.

“The Talent Group of Referees are a young group of referees varying in age from 23 through 35 with hopefully many years of refereeing at the highest levels of the game in front of them, opportunities like this are invaluable as we look to develop their careers.“

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