Academy Southland manager off to Rugby World Cup

Academy Southland manager Jason McKenzie will be supporting the referees and other officials at this year’s Rugby World Cup in Japan.  

It’s another exciting opportunity for McKenzie after he provided Performance Psychology support to the New Zealand team at the Youth Olympics last year.  

It was during his time in Buenos Aires that McKenzie was introduced to Mark Egan - Head of Competitions & Performance for World rugby. 

Following this he spent some time with the World Rugby Sevens Referees during the Hamilton 7’s in January this year. 

From there he was invited to the World Cup referees camp in Tokyo earlier this year where he got to interact with the 23 officials selected for the 2019 tournament, which kicks off on September 20 with the home nation taking on Russia.  

“They’re really interested in the support for a pinnacle event, which is quite different to another test match,” McKenzie said.  

“They are in a tournament situation for six to eight weeks, if you count the build up, so they are together for a long time and they are under more scrutiny than they normally are. They are athletes, they have trainers and nutritionists, so it was about how we support them as people and their performance.”  

McKenzie, who also works with the Southland Stags and Southern Steel, is looking forward to taking a different tack with officials.  

“The base stuff is the same – they are athletes trying to perform under pressure. There are some different things that happen for officials. Some of the scrutiny which they face is even over and above athletes, who might get away with making a mistake and that being ok.”  

McKenzie will spend a week in camp with the referees before the tournament starts and will have some limited involvement with them during the busy hurly-burly of pool play.  

He had already planned to be in Japan as a spectator, but will rejoin the group from the quarter-finals on.  

“A lot of them have their own sport psych and mental skills people that they work with all over the world. I made it clear that my job is not to replace those people, it’s to support them in the World Cup environment.”  

Wellbeing was vital to good performances at big events, McKenzie said.  

Transitioning into the tournament environment, performing under pressure, and then transitioning back home to the real world were the keys to having a positive experience, he said.  

Big events like World Cups or Olympic Games had rigid systems to ensure things ran smoothly and it was important to accept that, McKenzie said.  

Having been to Japan a couple of times already this year, McKenzie has some prior knowledge of what referees can expect.  

“Pinnacle events are very process-orientated, and the Japanese take that to another level. They will be exceptionally well looked after, there’s no issue with that, it’s just the amount of structure and the challenge of not being able to deviate from that,” he said.  

McKenzie is excited about the chance to work with new individuals in a high-performance environment.  

“Opportunities like these are great. Going to a single sport, pinnacle event, it’s similar but different. There will be ups and downs, because that’s how tournaments go, and it’s about riding that wave with them. I’ve already started looking at rugby games differently,” he said.  

“For me...success will be that they leave in one piece, feeling like they have grown from the experience.”