DUBAI // Rugby has a proud reputation for being a sport where respect for officials is universal. However, it still has to be earned by the people blowing the whistle, rather than assumed.
That is easier said than done when there are the best part of 700 people watching, the players are some of the most recognisable in the sport, and a place in a showpiece Dubai final is within touching distance.
Doubly so when you stand not much more than 5ft tall in long studs and most of the players you are bossing around are old enough to be your dad.
That was the assignment facing the female referee Chyna Howlett, 22, on Friday, when two sides full of ex-Test players met in the International Veterans tournament at a packed Pitch 3.
Despite her tender years and diminutive stature, the Australian oozed authority. When Elvis Seveali’i, the Samoan bulldozer playing for Christina Noble against Xodus Steelers, attempted to challenge her authority, he quickly found out who was boss. Namely, the woman in the middle who was half his size and 13 years his junior.
“I have had to learn over the past few years what to do, because I am little and blonde and trying to tell these big, burly men what to do,” Howlett said.
“They are grown men, so they are not going to like you talking to them like they are teenagers.
“I try to build a rapport with them, but if they are pushing the line, I need to cut it and teach them what’s what.”
Still, this was quite a step up from what she is used to. She moved to Brisbane from her provincial hometown two years ago for the expressed purpose of refereeing, but that usually constitutes second- or third-grade club matches, or colts fixtures.
She officiated her first match when she was 12, giving a decade of service to the game.
“Because I was from a country town, girls weren’t allowed to play from 12 onwards, so I started refereeing because my dad reffed and two brothers play,” she said.
“I have refereed my brothers. They are very careful not to [give backchat] because they know what will happen if they do.”
Although they attempt to go about it as anonymously as they can manage, the referees are also competing for places in Saturday’s finals.
Each is assessed on each match they supervise, and the showpiece games will be divvied out between those with the best reviews.
So if yesterday’s match on Pitch 3 was the biggest Howlett had officiated to date, she might have 45,000 people assessing her at some point today.
“We are all working together as a team, but we are then competing within that team, so it is a really interesting dynamic,” she said.
pradley@thenational.ae
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