NEW POST FOR ENGLAND REFEREE DAVE PEARSON RECALLS
A MOMENTOUS ITALIAN ADVENTURE

Reminiscences with a moral in the story

England International referee Dave Pearson has just retired from his twelve year professional stint to take up a post with the IRB. His elite coaching duties will embrace specific responsibility to develop referees from Scotland and Italy. The very thought of trips to Rovigo, Treviso, Padua and the other focal points of Italian rugby brings back vivid memories for me because in 1985 they were amongst the destinations on my  first serious foreign excursion for the RFU.

Along with Fred Howard, the brief was to tour the rugby areas delivering coaching seminars combined with our refereeing two Division One games on both weekends of our ten day visit. It was a memorable experience which offered a fascinating insight into the fifteen-a-side game of a fanatical soccer country, particularly the relationship between player and referee. Now I wouldn’t go so far as to say the wisdom we imparted transformed Italian rugby but I do believe we helped to sow the seeds for a new way of thinking; if you can picture the typical scene at an Italian football match – baying crowd, fastened in behind a high wire fence, totally distrusting the referee - imagine a scaled down version and you have the backdrop to the regular Sunday rugby played in Italy. At least, you certainly did twenty seven years ago.

It came, therefore, as a considerable shock when after refereeing Parma v Piacenza I remained in the clubhouse for well over an hour, mixing with the players and spectators, but it did more good than any advice I could offer on solving the problem of “never the twain shall meet.” Better still, or worse from my point of view, later that evening I was invited out to one of the liveliest dinners ever with the home team (who had won!) A near euphoric state persuaded me, dreadfully worse for wear, to stand on the table and lead a captive audience in a rendition of ‘the Music Man.’ It obviously became firmly entrenched in Italian Rugby folklore as an encounter in Aberdeen two years later will reveal: lining up with the Italian ‘A’ team for their pre-match photo before taking on Scotland, there was a tap on the shoulder and amusing gesture from one of the prop forwards standing alongside; he was repeating the ‘bag pipes’ impression from ‘Music Man.’ This veteran of the front row had of course played in the game at Piacenza and my after match performance must have had a greater impact than anything he remembered from the game itself. Oh, the power of rugby!

We did have further opportunities on this splendid tour to reinforce the need to breakdown the barriers between ‘us and them’, referees and players. Come to think of it, probably the issue needs to be revisited in England. It is a renowned feature of both rugby codes that there is a mutual respect between officials and players rarely seen in other team sports and it would be a great shame were it ever to go into decline.

I am very envious of Dave Pearson’s new job, especially the Italian mission. My last input for him was almost four years ago, Montauban v Munster in the Heineken Cup. With the aid of a flight to Toulouse via Amsterdam he and I somehow avoided one of the stormiest January nights on record in France. The two touch judges were not so lucky and failed to make it beyond Paris which meant that I was upgraded from TMO to TJ and the Welsh Assessor elevated to my original role. You never lose it. Dave, very best wishes and if you require any help in Italy just give me a call.

David Matthews  (10 11 2012)