Referee – Rugby League

Josephine Gillespie

Queensland rugby league referees director, Eddie Ward is used to being in the thick of the action on the football field. In a life that has revolved around rugby league, Eddie’s time as a referee took him around the country and overseas, where he got to interact with some of the game’s greats.

“Referees cop a lot of abuse obviously but really it’s an enjoyment to be out there,” Eddie said. “I wasn’t much of a player so it was a chance to be out there with the top players and to be involved in the middle is just something not a lot of people get a chance to do,” he said. Eddie was raised in a strong rugby league culture and became a referee in 1971 aged 19.

“My brother was the star in the family as far as football goes and he got called up in the national service, as it was called in those days, so I took on refereeing and I’ve been doing it ever since,” Eddie said.
After having passed the pre-requisite exams and gaining his QRL ticket, he started out refereeing junior games but quickly moved through the ranks to referee his first A Grade game in 1974.

Eddie said there was little difference in the style of refereeing between the grades. “Obviously, as you go into the higher grades, the game gets faster, the people maybe try a few more tricks than the lower levels but it’s all a game of football,” he said.

In his early 20s, Eddie became the youngest referee for a Test match – between Australia and New Zealand. Officiating at the 1985 World Cup and refereeing the National Rugby League’s State of Origin games have been personal highlights. Eddie said players dreamt of playing State of Origin footaball and it was the same for the match officials.

While he got used to the constant flying between Brisbane and Sydney for fixtures, Eddie said maintaining a certain level of fitness was a challenge. “You have to be fit,” he said. “You run as much as the players do (but) you just don’t get the same knocks.” Eddie hung up his whistle in 1998 and moved into an NRL video referee role and said the pressure mounted.

“The catchcry was you get one look at it and make a decision but, when you’re a video referee, you look at all different angles and all these other things are going through your head and the fact you look at it so many times, they expect more and they expect you’re 100 per cent right,” he said.

In 2003, Eddie took on a role at the newly established Queensland Referees Academy. He oversees the running of the squad, which includes up to 40 promising whistleblowers and makes referee appointments from within the academy at Queensland Cup, Colts and A Grade games. He travels around Queensland, monitoring the performance of junior referees.

Eddie said getting to the top and securing an NRL contract, took a lot of commitment.”Some people can’t commit to it because of their job, because there’s no guarantee that you’re ever going to get a contract that can take you full-time,” Eddie said.

“The commitment level is high. “We’re humans. We make mistakes. We get things wrong but, unfortunately, some of the spectators tend to think that we shouldn’t,” Eddie said. Despite the geographic obstacles, Eddie said there were career paths for country referees if they had the skills, with fitness tests conducted for out-of-town Queensland Cup referees.

He said the elite squad gave people a chance to reach the highest level. Former Queensland referee Brett Suttor, a veteran of Queensland Cup grand finals and representative games, this year was selected as part of the NRL referee squad.