Thursday night, Day 5

Well once again the busy and long days of Kanga have gotten the better of me and my daily blog is more looking like a summary. No matter, hardly anyones reading it....

Semi Final's today and it's been both busy and flatout. I even pulled on the shorts and ran around on U/12 and U/15 consolidation matches (kept them all on the field). Spend today again at Kayleen, helping sort out rescheduled matches / moved grounds and the occasional unhappy coach (actually was only 1). Solid crew out there today, worked very hard and should be commended.

After a long wait for collection, back to dinner (and final check of the appointments for finals) and then formal dress for the presentations, held next door in the Wattle Lodge.
It was surprisingly a good event and the best way that anyone's managed to finish the programming part of the Kanga Cup (atleast from the officials perspective). Silly awards, followed adhoc by coaches special mentions of standouts in the group (using the end of the goodies that Scott Ferguson supplied, thanks mate), then presentation of certificates for everyone, the naming of all the finals referees (another certificate) and finally the Referee of the Tourament (Haydn McCabe), Senior Referee (Kyle Hockings) and Junior Referee (Chris Janssen)


Kyle, Haydn, Chris














Appointments were posted just after 10pm and people started to drift off to bed soon afterwards. Should be a busy day Friday (its already Friday by the clock),with finals at 5 venues across Canberra.

Good luck to everyone and leave it all on the park!!!

Friday night looks to be dinner back here at 7pm, followed by movies for U/18's, night out for Over 18's and perhaps a very quiet and early drink with my friends to reflect on the week before a early night - flying back to HB very early Saturday.

I'm post more pictures as I can get reliable internet access, and its not really working well here. Pauls promised a bunch of pictures, so I'll get them up on Flickr asap over the weekend (Sunday)

Nite from a very quiet KCYRA

Monday 11th July, Day 2 - Games begin

Hey KCYRA fans (perhaps getting a bit ahead of myself),

Well a very busy and exhausting Day 2 of the YRA is over and once again I find myself alone at the keyboard, keen to update on the happens as I saw them today. First day of action on the fields and the referees were very keen and ready to blow those whistles this morning. Early risers started appearing from 5am for a 6:30am breakfast - just hope they can keep this up!!!!

Lots of excitment and buzz in the common area on Sunday night, partly from the seminar by Ben Williams (FIFA Referee) but mostly from the appointments being released online. You can download them at the link on the left of the blog - Kanga Cup Appointments

Amazing what a bit of nervous do - several referees had their noses in the LOTG this morning instead of watching cartoons on the TV, some with interesting questions on the laws.

With seven venues, busses started to depart at 7:30am and everyone was off to their first day of competition. I was located at O'Connor with David London as Refs Coordinator and a nice crisp but dry morning greeted us. Settled into the refs room, inspected the 5 fields, David tried his hand at a bit of technical area marking (not greatly successful) until we found a builder who could draw a straight line with better precision - thanks Hayden.

Games ko on time at 9:30am , with a mix of U/12 and U/18 matches rotating all day. Everyone I saw performed really well and apart from some Bike Pants issues (when is this issue going to be resolved, its been law for atleast 5 years???), a great day of strong performances from the YRA guys was seen.

Upon return to BCL everyone caughtup on the events at other venues, dinner was welcomed at 6pm (Chicken Schnitchel) and we had the pleasure of Ben Wilson (recently retired FIFA AR) giving a presentation on AR's at Elite level. Positives / Negatives for the day was discussed, along with housekeeping issues, Roadblocks in refereeing and some birthday cake for the three birthdays in the group this week - I'll get back to you on those names, as they escape me right now

38 referees were seen today by the referee coaches, with a hopeful chance of similar numbers tommorrow. Potentially all 108 by Wednesday, with several to be seen twice is the current estimate. This will give the coaches the best possible chance to select the best of the best for the finals and also greatly improve the quality of refereeing locally with everyone having a evaluation to take away at the end of Kanga 2011.

I'll try and post some twitter posts on Tuesday @kangacupref and try for a earlier update to the blog.

Finally, pictures are now going to be posted on the Ausref flickr stream - link on the right side of the blog - its a good place online for them, allows folks without FB (evil) access easier and many thanks once again to Scott Ferguson, great friend to the referees here at Kanga for his generous donation of the usage of his account over the years and continuing this year.

p.s Notes on the local Wide Bay crew, good day was had by all three, good inspection reports with areas to improve, and they seem to be having a good time!!!!!!!