The Czech Rugby League Association is the latest governing body to complete a part of the RLEF’s Technical Strategy, with its two match officials tutors qualifying 10 domestic candidates over the weekend. The three-year project is being run in partnership with the European Commission’s Leonardo da Vinci programme, which promotes life-long learning.

CZRLA tutors Andrew Mulhall and Roman Nedomlel, who both attended the first phase of the capacity building project, led on the first ever Czech rugby league Level 1 Match Officials course, which was planned to coincide with the International 9s in Pardubice.

Having witnessed the encouraging spike in local action over the past 12-to-18-months Mulhall is keen to ensure that local playing stocks don’t outstrip the association’s ability to deploy trained match officials: "This has been an excellent opportunity for the match officials who volunteer their time in the Czech championship to be qualified. We have combined what was an excellent theory seminar with the practical aspects of the CZRLA International 9s tourney to give each of the CZRLA match official candidates an excellent base for continuing to develop with our expanding player base."

The candidates were able to apply their theory on the field over the course of Saturday’s 9s event – the first Czech rugby league event played on synthetic grass - which was won, predictably, by BARLA Youth. The latter voted James Mabunda the standout local player.

The Czech tutors were assessed by the RFL’s Warren Turley: "I have enjoyed being involved with this project and to help with the Czechs develop their pool of match officials".