Two Darling Downs teenage rugby union referees have been named winners of the 2018 Australian Secondary School Scholarship: Emilya Byrne, a year 12 student at The Glennie School, Toowoomba and Tom Kelk, who is in year 12 at Toowoomba Grammar School.
The scholarship awards the best of the best teenage referees across all of Australia, with 27 scholarships awarded nationally this year, eight of them to Queensland students.
Emilya is the only female student to be awarded in 2018 and is the first female to be awarded a scholarship in southern country Queensland.
Emilya, who lives in Oakey, has been refereeing for four seasons. She has refereed teenage games for many years and made her debut refereeing senior men in the Risdon Cup earlier this month. Last year she refereed state teenage carnivals in Brisbane and was assistant referee in the 2017 Toowoomba Grammar / Downlands 1st XV. Emilya is an active 7s player for Glennie Girls School, USQ Ladies Sevens and she is a regional representative sevens player.
Tom has been refereeing for five seasons and has refereed all teenage grades in Darling Downs as well as a range of representative school games. During 2017 he refereed a number of representative teenage games. Tom also recently made his debut refereeing Darling Downs Men’s Risdon Cup rugby. Last December he participated in the Rugby Australia L1 Foundation Course. Tom is a regional representative player for Darling Downs and he recently toured the US as a player with Toowoomba Grammar School.
The Rugby Australia School Student Scholarship was introduced a number of years ago to help raise the profile of refereeing at schools, and to provide encouragement for young referees to remain in refereeing when they leave school. The program has proved very successful with a significant number of young referees progressing through the scholarship program to referee at senior levels in their state and internationally.
Students selected for the SSS program are involved in a range of activities designed to improve their knowledge of the game, enhance their performance as referees, and expose them to a higher standard of rugby.
- Anyone interested in becoming a rugby referee should contact Downs Rugby Referee President Scott Lindblom on president@ddrra.com