Auckland’s Ben Skeen was recently announced as one of four Television Match Officials for the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Ben has over 150 first-class TMO appointments under his belt as well as as over 30 first class referee appearances and will jet off to England later in the year to officiate at the highest level.

In part 1 of a series of interviews, he discusses how he became a referee and TMO, his role, his day job and what it involves.

Why did you get involved in refereeing?

I come from a rugby mad family. My grandfather was captain of Auckland for 4 or 5 years and was capped for the All Blacks. So I grew up around the game but was always too small and skinny to play the game at any reasonable level. So, it seemed that with a brain for rugby and a desire to stay fit and to be involved in the game, it was logical to transition toward the middle of the field with a whistle in hand.

What’s your current role with New Zealand Rugby?

I’m contracted to NZR as a Television Match Official. I first made the New Zealand squad as an on-field referee in 2005 which continued until 2012. This included Referee, Assistant Referee (or TJ in the early days) and TMO roles at Super Rugby and ITM level. However, after a couple of knee injuries and cartilage tears I made the transition to be appointed to full-time TMO duties.

Both of those injuries happened at the start of the ITM Cup and since I had nothing to do over the most important time of the squad’s year I became involved with the non-mobile duties covering Friday, Saturday and Sunday games.

Before long I had more TMO experience than most in the squad and got to enjoy the pressure of having to make those crunch decisions. So I became somewhat of a specialist in the TMO role.

Spectators and commentators regularly suggest that refereeing needs to improve. What are your thoughts?

There’s no doubt that all referees are looking for 100% accuracy in their decision making and observations out on the field. I think where we all struggle is that the game is increasingly fast and the players have become masters at their craft. Each of the professional teams have expert coaches who work on narrow areas of the game in the hope of perfecting them. As a referee we need to understand those trends and developments. Recognising them out on the field, either to reward or to sanction, becomes even more difficult over time.

Is it harder to referee today? Do you ever think “I couldn’t do that”?

It’s incredibly difficult. I think part of the process of understanding where the game has got to is with the TMO. If we rewind five years, the TMO was only ever allowed to consider try scoring scenarios and now the brief has widened to include acts of foul play and things two phases back in the lead up to play. In the modern game this could be 100 metres down the field and because the TMO has more of a brief that would tend to suggest that referees need more assistance.

How much time does the TMO role take up?

It fluctuates. There is travel depending on the appointment. If it is international, you arrive on Thursday or early Friday at the latest so that could be 1-2 days off work. With Super Rugby it can be similar but SANZAR usually keeps us operating within our own countries. Outside of all of that, there is an expectation that you are watching a significant number of the games of the competition that you are operating within – be that Super Rugby or recently the Six Nations – so you have a view on incidents, new trends and how the competition is evolving.

An example from last year is a number of teams were attempting to take out players around the ruck with subtle jersey pulling trying to create more space.

Watching that on a week by week basis allows you to be more accurate about that information and providing reports about those acts of foul play to the match day referee.

Outside of refereeing, what’s your day job?

I’m Associate Headmaster at Auckland Grammar School which has around 2500 students. We have two Associate Headmasters both looking at the strategic direction of the school. I also have direct responsibility for form 3 to form 5 students (Year 9 to 11) and we’ve got 1500 of those.

For the last 5 years, I’ve also been head of rugby at the school. The school has over 500 students who play rugby and about 20 rugby teams with about 55 coaches. So in my years before transitioning to my current role I was also managing that.

Back in 2012, I was appointed to coach 1^st XV as the forwards coach. I was a pretty small forward but have spent plenty of time trying to understanding the dynamics of the scrum and forwards game. Now on to the fourth year my role has narrowed to being the scrum coach because of my expanded role elsewhere.

The team has done well to get to three 1A / 1B finals in recent years and won it last year having been runners up two years previously. Last year, our other teams were well represented in the finals at other grades too.

What does your wife, Hayley, think about the demands on your time?

Hayley is hugely supportive which I appreciate dearly. She enjoys the ability to go to fixtures that I am involved in and listening in to the conversations that I am having. Especially since she’s had the opportunity to get to know a lot more of the referees.

We’ve been quite deliberate in trying to have her come along with me to matches, especially International games, so she understands the reason for all the background work like sitting down on mySky or on my laptop watching games over and over and over again.

Because she comes along, she doesn’t need to query the point of it all because when she is in a stadium with a packed house watching a game with large viewership on TV it is clear why I have to spend so much time preparing.

What’s it like to be selected for the Rugby World Cup?

It’s a real honour to be selected and working with three other guys who are experts in TMOing. There’ll be 48 games, so my initial understanding is that those will be divided between the four of us and that those that perform well, bearing in mind the neutrality requirements, will be available for the knockout games.

I’d like to think I was selected because of my accuracy over the years. I’ve been involved since 2005 and had close to 150 first class TMO appointments so that’s a lot of time walking up the steps to the TMO box to make decisions. I’d also like to think that I have consistently been able to show a very clear understanding of the laws of the game and the communication process to make clear decisions.

It’s not about understanding the laws in isolation it’s about the ability to interact with the man in the middle and ensure that not only he understands but the rugby public does too.

Our series continues tomorrow, when Ben continues his conversation with interviewer, David Nolan.