Luke Pearce is a professional rugby referee for England Rugby and lives in Exeter. He will officiate the penultimate round of the 2023 Guinness Six Nations when Scotland takes on Ireland on 12th March at Murrayfield.
Along with our partners at ACME whistles, we caught up with Luke to find out a little more about some of the big talking points amongst rugby referees right now and his passion for making the game as positive as possible for the players and fans.
“We wanted to referee Six Nations in the same way we will referee the World Cup,” said Luke.
“Then, when the World Cup rolls around in September there are no new things that people are addressing.
“The big talking points really are around head contact which is still a huge issue within rugby. Not just at the high end, but also in the community game.
“Players need to tackle lower and avoid any contact with the head, but if something goes wrong, that’s illegal and we will carry out an appropriate level of sanctioning. it is important that we are consistent with this across all 15 refs and all 15 matches, something we are working hard to achieve.”
Regarding the speed of the game, Luke adds: “This was something that we wanted to address after January. There was a feeling out there that matches were dragging on and were losing the appeal of people wanting to watch it.
“We have a responsibility as refs to make sure that we’re trying to keep that pace in the game. We can’t make players play quickly and that isn’t our job, but we can stop them slowing the game down. So, that was the second key item.
“Then around the technical parts of the game – the lineout is huge and making sure we’re equitable with both attack and defense.”
About the big decisions Luke says: “People can pull apart what a big decision is. Whether it’s a try or a penalty on the 80th minute so one team wins a match or whether it be a yellow card, red card or no card at all.
“These big moments are when we as referees, TMO’s and ARs have got to get bang on the money because that’s where we take the public and the commentators with us. It’s not a popularity contest, but if we can help explain what we’re doing and why it helps people understand that decision.”
For more information on refereeing and to get started, visit www.acmewhistles.co.uk