Mr. Dudley Phillips:

When our referees find themselves in the unfortunate position of being on the wrong end of abuse, they report the incident to their province. The figures I gave earlier are across the four provinces. There is an element of support across each of the associations and societies. It puts their arm around the referees and gives them any support, either mental or general support, to get them through that particular case. It offers them some guidance from those who have perhaps been there before them. We have gone down the road of education over the last 12 months to help a referee to identify an abuse before it escalates into an unacceptable behaviour. They might gain some insight into and change their behaviour to try to counteract it before it happens.

On welfare, thankfully this does not happen often, but if a scenario were to be that severe, we would certainly offer some additional support to an individual referee who might need it off-field.