QRL officials step up at eye-opening Solomon Islands tournament

Five referees from the Queensland Rugby League High Performance Unit have played a pivotal role bringing their knowledge to the 2023 Pacific Games in the Solomon Islands.

Mixing with officials from a variety of Pacific nations - many who had never been exposed to an elite environment - the Queensland crew including Izzy Davidson, Nick McEwan, Adam Rossiter, Matt Gannon and Rochelle Tamarua became leaders and mentors amid a hectic, fast-paced Nines tournament at the end of November.

Even prior to the matches kicking off, logistical challenges meant at times the group was split up, leading to the travelling crew to take responsibility to run training sessions to replicate as close as possible the preparation the HPU officials go through for any game.

QRL HPU referee Nick McEwan said the group was able to form a great bond during the few days they had together and enjoyed the opportunity to share some of what he had learned since joining the HPU in the 2020 pre-season.

"We've obviously got one on one chats with our coaches week-in, week-out and at training each week, so we constantly revolve around footy, and we have access to video review and all that so when we were going to training (in Honiara) we could push that knowledge through we'd learnt over the years, just simple things like our methodology we could touch base on so they can take that knowledge home to their local leagues," McEwan said.

"It was definitely an eye opener when we went over there, but we just embraced every step as it came and you realise very quickly you're on island time, so you just roll with it."

The 2022 Mal Meninga Cup grand final referee and 2022 Rugby League Ipswich senior referee of the year hoped the lessons from the experience would propel him to further improvement in 2024.

"My goals are just around improving, making sure I'm better in my last game of the season than I was in the preseason," McEwan said.

Fijian referee Filipe Matai Tabuya, who is one of three senior match officials in the island nation having started in 2012, said the event was "lots of fun and also a good learning experience on how to control the game well, especially positioning and also those vocabs".

"It was good to learn from such a young team of referees who travelled from Australia with Rochelle (Tamarua) and other match officials," he said.

"I have taken those experiences with me back home to Fiji and surely will help me in footy in Fiji."

QRL officials co-ordinator Rochelle Tamarua said she was proud of the way QRL officials led the way when needed and passed on the professionalism that forms an important part of their craft, forming lifetime bonds along the way.

"They represented out state with pride. I was very proud to see them in a leadership role, not just as a referee, but also as mentors and I think moving forward it gives them a little bit more confidence to take that experience to other tournaments and into 2024 season," Tamarua said.

"Andrew Wareham (QRL officiating HPU coach) has built a really good system around on and off field performance in HPU and that's what the five referees displayed at the carnival. It worked really well working with people from different nations, understanding the way they operate and being really conscious of how they approach certain situations they're not used to.

"I think the proudest moment for me was seeing the QRL officials, NZRL officials and our Pacific nations came together and worked as a family despite the challenges and differences we have.

"Most of (the Pacific nations officials) would not have experienced what it's like to be a professional referee - wearing comms gear for the first time, warming up as a team and punctuality - and in the future hopefully they will have more people who will give up their time to go back to these Pacific nations and run workshops and support more of them to become professional referees."