SCOTLAND has doubled its number of full-time rugby referees after Watsonian Peter Allan joined Andrew McPherson on the professional panel.
Allan, 33, who gave up playing because of injury, has already ran touch at various home internationals as well as refereeing a World Cup qualifier between Georgia and Spain.
Under a sponsorship arrangement Allan, currently a property project mana
ger with the Royal Bank of Scotland group, will remain an employee but will be seconded to refereeing full-time.
Colin Thomson, Scottish Rugby's head of community rugby, said: "Our full-time refereeing posts are the icing on the cake of a comprehensive plan to improve both the number and standard of referees in Scotland.
"Clearly if we are to reach the targets set out in our strategic plan, where we aim to have 38,000 adult and youth players by 2012, an increase of 11,000 from last year, then we must ensure that we have an increase in the numbers of referees too, and support them in their development as referees."
The SRU have also appointed two part-time referee coaches, in Bill Calder and Colin High, and announced a senior academy aimed at referees who have the potential to become members of the high-performance group within two years.
The full article contains 217 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
