A series of match officials and coaching courses have been successfully undertaken by the Ukrainian Rugby League Federation, in readiness for the start of the newly instituted Joma Super League in mid-March.

 Eight new match officials - Denys Cherniev, Roman Bykhov, Olexiy Shkolny, Olexiy Markov, Dmytro Medvedev (all from Kharkiv), Igor Yurkin (Pokrovsk), Viktor Baranov (Kyiv), Maxym Synytsya (Rivne) – qualified, with chairman of the MO and coaches’ committee, Olexander Ivchenko, running the course at the head office of insurance company Knyazha in KharkÑ–v.

 “The courses were very effective,” Ivchenko said. “We considered all the issues raised in the last season, reviewed a lot of video content on refereeing and developed the concept of high-quality officiating for all kinds of domestic competitions.”

 At the same time in Kyiv (Kiev), at the Olena Vasylivna Mendel school, the UFRL conducted courses on children's coaching for the first time, led by New Zealander Ray Murphy.

 The programme consisted of three parts; theory, practice and discussion and was structured around children and youth players from the ages of six to 18.

 Sixteen participants from eight cities took part - Gennady Veprik, Anatoly Grankovsky  (Kharkiv), Igor Yurkin, Vladimir Lysenko (Pokrovsk), Volodymyr Mazepa (Kramatorsk), Volodymyr Radchyk (Rivne), Volodymyr Krutovsky (Ternopil), Bogdan Mykytyuk (Ivano-Frankivsk), Severyn Shkilnyk, Volodymyr Rizov (Lviv) and Artur Martyrosyan, Ruslan Myshko, Zhanna Myshko, Evgen Zubrytskyi, Artem Zakharenko, Viktor Baranov  (Kyiv) - all of them passing the course.

 “I was very much surprised by the results that have been achieved here over a very short period of time,” Murphy commented. “So many people are working fanatically and diligently developing the sport. I'm sure that in the near future rugby league in Ukraine will gain even more speed.”