Meet the two referees celebrating 50 test milestones at the Six Nations
Yesterday at 10:48 AM
This year's Six Nations signifies a big step in the careers of two international referees who will both reach 50-test achievements, becoming the first to get to that level in their respective Unions.
Angus Gardner (Aus) and Ben O'Keeffe (NZ) will each referee their 50th test matches during the tournament, taking the number of officials to reach this prestigious milestone to 15, including England's Luke Pearce.
The experts at ACME Whistles were able to grab an exclusive interview with both officials to congratulate them on the upcoming achievement and find out more about their careers to-date.
The two have spent the majority of their professional careers travelling round the world together to referee various tournaments and have forged a strong friendship, with Gardner's wife describing their relationship as a "bromance".
Both will join the 50-test club during their first games of the tournament with O'Keeffe just clinching the milestone during the Ireland vs England game in the first round and Gardner following in round four with Ireland vs France.
With Northern hemisphere competitions and Southern Hemisphere competitions running in a different timeline both referees feel like the Six Nations signals the start of their rugby season as well as a landmark in their careers.
"I’ve done some games leading up to the Six Nations working with one of the teams that we have in Super Rugby, The Hurricanes," starts O'Keeffe.
"So, you’re in for a few weeks with them, you’re training, you’re doing your running lines and pre seasons being part of their live trainings and then I’ve been over in the UK a week early to ref a Premiership game – an exciting experience for me and a first."
Adding to that Gardner said: "I'm not too dissimilar to Benny. I think that’s the real challenge for us in the South is how do we get game time in or how do we get best preparation in with such a long layoff. As Benny said the guys up here probably only get a three to four week break if they’re lucky at the end of their seasons, whereas a guys in the South, you know, we could be up to two months down South, perhaps longer depending on where we finish in November around what our break looks like.
"It is really key for us that we're trying to maintain something through that period. So, I’m like, Ben, I’ve been with the Waratahs, and they’ve been really accommodating around me doing some preseason stuff with them.
"For us as referees, we're kind of our own team and so one of the challenges is how do we motivate ourselves when we’re training by ourselves. And so, when we’re in with the team, you’re actually in a rugby environment and that’s fantastic and your mind's switching into gear, which is great.
"I guess the other thing slightly different to Ben, cause Ben’s kind of going straight into Six Nations off the back of a warmup game and some preseason stuff. Whereas for me, I’ll come up to camp, which will be a really good part of my preparation because it’ll kind of signal to me the first meeting of the year, make sure we’re fully aligned as a referee group; we know what our key focus areas are; we know what our critical few elements to referee are.
"That will really help me with my preparation from a technical perspective is that alignment with the group and then it’ll be coming back and doing the first three rounds of Super Rugby back down here so I’ll get three really good games in down here and then come back up to Dublin off the back of those three games straight into my Six Nations games. So, it’ll actually be fantastic preparation."
Talking about hitting their 50th test match milestone together, O'Keeffe said: "We’ve got a stats guy in New Zealand who keeps track of our numbers and I never keep track of how many games I’ve done, but he let me know when I got to 43 or 46 because that was sort of the most in New Zealand.
"So I had an idea that I was getting close to 50, but I had no idea that Angus was also going to his 50th as well until I read an article a few months ago and I just thought that was really fitting if you look back at our careers, us being together and the experience that we’ve had for us to both hit 50 this year like it’s quite an amazing full circle experience for me which I’m very grateful for.
"And, you know, hoping we can hit more milestones together as well. I think that’s fantastic because you know I admire Angus; what he’s done and respect him a lot and to be able to do it with him like this is pretty cool."
When asked about how rugby has changed over the course of their careers and whether player and referee interaction has changed both referees take time to reflect with O'Keeffe saying: "If I think back to when I referred Club Rugby in Dunedin then all the way to all the games I’ve done now the one constant is the respect that there is for refereeing.
"Despite everything that’s been going on and how people see things, that’s one of the things that keeps me part of this game and why I love it so much is that despite all of what we see in the other sports that go on around the world, the respect and the communication between players, captains and referees in rugby are actually one thing we should be very proud of. And so that’s one thing that if you stripped all that back has been one that I’ve really thought was a positive."
Both referees agree that being part of rugby means being embraced by a global community and they both genuinely believe they have the best job in the world with a lot of that down to the relationships they've built, including theirs as friends.
"Travelling with someone like Ben for most of my career and knowing him as well as Ido, I mean, we’ve known each other for an incredibly long time now, probably over 10 years and done so many games together," said Gardner.
"You do come to trust people and you learn from each other through shared experiences. And I think something that’s definitely helped both of our careers is the shared experiences that we’ve had on tours.
"The great thing is we were so lucky in the early days to have as many tours as we did because the relationship that you build, like we’re talking spending two or three weeks with the same person for most of the year. And you build some deep connections there and deep relationships and you learn so much from each other through great shared experiences, good and bad.
"So, I feel very lucky to have been able to share that with Ben for such a long period."
Adding to that, O'Keeffe responded: "I always encourage referees just to keep learning because the things we're learning and experiencing as referees can actually extend to relationships outside of that like at work or within your family. The skills you learn really help you grow as a person.
"All those experiences that you have on the pitch, no matter how young you start or whether you’re questioning your referring, I think it’s so beneficial. Even some of the top referees in the world ask me if I still make mistakes and how do I deal with it.
"My response is always yeah, I do and it's OK. You learn from them, get better.
So, it’s OK if you’re a young referee starting out and you’ve hit some really good games or you’ve had some learnings as well. ‘= It happens right at the top level as well. So, I just hugely encourage it as such a fulfilling role to be part of to help you as a person."
"I think to Ben’s point," adds Gardner.
"One of the biggest things that we do look at as part of our review is how did we interact with players, how did we interact with captain’s key players in the key moments and that actually forms a key part of our review because, as Ben said, unless you’re constantly trying to learn and grow and reflect on that stuff you do you can't get better."
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