Pepsi Capital Rugby Union have run a referee clinic on the 9th-10th April as a refresher for certified referees and to give an insight on what to expect should interested participants pursue this line of involvement with rugby. Capital Rugby Union General Manager, Eddie Galele Jnr said that this initiative is taken to ensure their participants and officials that will be facilitating their matches go through refreshers before starting off their 2024 season as they will be going into their second pre-season games this weekend. Following requests for match official training to be ran in January through to February that did not eventuate, Galele stated that they were fortunate to engage Callum Robertson from the Queensland Rural Referees Association. “We were fortunate enough to engage Mr. Callum Robertson from the Queensland Rural Referees Association to come in and run the clinic.” “He had just officiated in the Hong Kong 7s over the weekend and is transiting through PNG before heading back down to Australia.” Additionally, feedback from the participants have been positive with a number of experienced referees attending that were grateful for the clinic and are looking forward to growing as individuals off the field as both CRU and CRUW will be engaging the same officials throughout the year and are looking to running more clinics. Galele stated that the game of rugby is ever evolving and having someone of Callum's caliber and experience run this clinic, helped the attendees understand how rugby rules are interpreted abroad especially after Callum's experience with the Hong Kong 7s over the weekend. “We've had to select a few from the total number of interested people that applied with the main guideline being participants being attached to a local club. Sticking with the universal student/teacher ratio, we've had to cut numbers down to 20.” “This was also due to the fact we diverted facilitator's ticket from Hong Kong into Pom on the last minute.” “What is encouraging is the number of interested young individuals who have put their hands up to attend.” Meanwhile Galele said there are numerous training and facilitation portfolios that can be pursued be it coaching, officiating, or facilitating. “At CRU, our aim is to grow the product on and off the field to ensure that the saying ‘better people turn out to be better players which in turn breeds better rugby’ needs to be realized.”