Referee scarcity across New Zealand rugby clubs

Rugby referees are in demand as hundreds of matches are played each weekend nationwide.

According to Auckland Rugby Referees, more than 20,000 players within the region play on Saturdays during rugby season.

Women’s referee development lead and referee at New Zealand Rugby, Maggie Cogger-Orr, said the increasing number of emerging player grades, particularly for juniors.

“That’s great, but the more new grades we have, the more referees we need,” she said.

Caleb Greaves at North Harbour Rugby Referees Association said some referees cover multiple games often right after each other because of the scarcity.

“We’ve got enough to get by... but the workload for each individual referee is high,” he said.

Greaves started posting on North Harbour Referees’ Instagram, doing ‘something dumb every day until someone signs up’ to encourage registration.

“We've tried basically everything and I thought as a last-ditch effort at this point in the season, we may as well try something a bit rogue.

“I just do the stupidest thing that pops up in my head,” he said.

The videos include tackling a recycle bin, red-carding a stranger, recreating a scene from Star Wars, and more.

Greaves said the videos increased North Harbour Referees’ visibility, garnering 500,000 views in the last 30 days.

By day 11, someone had signed up to referee, so the goal changed to 5 new referees.

It is now day 18, and a second person has signed up to referee.

Cogger-Orr said New Zealand Rugby has made efforts in 2026 to revamp refereeing courses, including the Introduction to Refereeing course.

“This year we’ve sort of redone it, turned it into a bit more of a blended environment, so people do some things online and some in-person workshops.

“The programme has been designed to be run by anyone in any union to help them get more referees on board,” she said.

The Women and Girls Introduction to Refereeing course is part of the initiative to get more people to sign up to referee.

“A lot of women really value having a women and girls only environment that lets them attend rugby things that they maybe wouldn’t feel confident to attend in other circumstances” she said.

Maggie Chang, an attendee of the North Harbour Women and Girls Introduction to Refereeing course, said refereeing is a start for her to join the rugby industry.

“I want to learn more, some skills.

“There are not enough referees, we also need women referees,” she said.

Greaves said that refereeing is great for anyone.

“If you love rugby but can't make your team's trainings, you have finished playing or even if you're young and perhaps maybe not keen on the hits, this is a really good option.”

“Anybody who’s willing to give it a go should really be proud of themselves that they are willing to do something that a lot of people aren’t willing to do,” said Cogger-Orr.

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Our journalists sometimes use AI tools which are checked by humans for accuracy. 

AI was used to transcribe audio from the interview.