Richie Heap, who’s 48, leaves for Nottingham, England, next week, where the world cup runs from July 15 to 21.
Ranked sixth in the world, he blew his first world cup in Australia in 2015 and his next in Malaysia in 2019, where temperatures hit 50 degrees.
The former gym instructor, who’s reffed 51 Tests in the past 10 years, will be reffing about four games a day in the 10-team elite grade, which includes New Zealand and Australia, who are invariably the best teams.
Heap says "there’s probably not a sport where the referee has to be fitter".
Each game, the three refs swap between stints on either sideline and on the field, keeping pace with speedy players whom he says are "weapons".
Ironically, the players sub out after about a minute while the refs remain on duty throughout the 40-minute games.
"Basically, you’ve got to run as fast backwards as people running forward at you," Heap says.
He adds refs’ main responsibilities are maintaining the 7m distance between players at all times and adjudicating on tries.
"Touch referees become good at making split-second decisions."
Heap says he does 12-week training blocks ahead of tournaments, comprising gym and sprint work.
"My speed has slowed down slightly but the fitness and endurance is probably the best it’s been."
The trick as you get older is to ref the game a lot smarter, Heap says.
But there’s "quite a lot of pressure", he says — "each game is assessed and you’re ranked".
A former Manawatu rep, he got into reffing when his team had to supply a ref "and I drew the short straw".
"Then I had to sort of make a choice between playing or reffing — and I actually got really good at refereeing quite quickly."
