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JP Doyle is back refereeing eight months after he was made redundant by the RFU
By Liam Heagney
Popular referee JP Doyle is set to resume his career in America with the MLR eight months after it emerged he had been made redundant by the RFU in England following a decade on their full-time refereeing staff. It was last August, amid the post-lockdown restart of the 2019/20 Gallagher Premiership, when it emerged that Doyle was deemed surplus to requirement by the referees’ department at RFU HQ in Twickenham.
Doyle remained involved in refereeing since his redundancy, accepting an invitation to referee at the World Tens tournament that was held over three weekends in Bermuda in October and November, but his latest move to the MLR could mean he will continue long-term as a referee.
Despite all the difficulties currently involved in trans-Atlantic travel, Doyle opted to link up with the MLR and he has been appointed to take charge of this Saturday's Toronto Arrows and Seattle Seawolves match in Marietta, Georgia.
It was January when the 41-year-old spoke to RugbyPass Offload about his controversial departure from the RFU where he had been part of their national panel of referees since 2006, stepping up to a full-time role in 2010 and going on to take charge of the 2014 Premiership final and officiate at the following year's World Cup.
Asked on the show why exactly he was made redundant, Doyle told RugbyPass Offload: “Well, I didn’t actually ask in the end. I just kind of got the news and went ‘fine’. The easiest thing is they just made redundancies, they decided I was the best person to made redundant.
"Players move clubs, people move jobs. It’s not ideal. I wasn’t happy. I didn’t like it. I was upset but I understood their point, where things are. It’s a game, we move on. If there was a story it would be great to get it out there and say what they did and what I did, (but) it’s a situation they were in. They made a decision. It sucks for me. I’m sure it sucks for them as well and you just move on.
“There is no chapter seven in the book that you can say, ‘I’ll hold this one back’. It just is a redundancy and there is a lot of people in a lot of situations at the moment and no one is going to cry for a referee, unfortunately.”
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Look there are a few unarguable facts here that are very clear. SARU was close to bankruptcy with SR, bailed out by the Lions and they need the URC and EPCR. Inclusion of SA teams in URC has been a great for for ALL concerned, from a rugby perspective and financially, moreover there is massive growth yet to come. The GP is in financial trouble and this will be the catalyst for EPCR change to further cement the Boks.
If this all plays out with even greater rewards for the urc AND the Top14 & GP via EPCR, the 6N will become 7N. Nz and Aus NEED to get their version firing with Japan & the PI’s, otherwise they will find themselves increasingly regressing…
Go to commentsPerofeta came back and was available for the eoyt right? Or was that why Love was in the squad (but got injured in the last week)?
It was such a frustrating year. Perofeta looked a service stop gap until Jordan was fit, but then got injured. Plummer was selected because of Pero's injury and dmac shat the bed in the second half in Australia but Clarke (?) got himself binned at the 65 min mark so Plummer couldn't come on (at least with the risk adverse Razors thinking) when he was planned to.
So many other exciting opportunities that could have happened without injuries, but then theyre probably balanced by knowing Sititi probably wouldn't have been given a chance without multiple injuries happened.
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