Amy Perrett is keen to shake the tag as the 'token female referee', looking to inspire the next generation of women's officials.
Perrett has been a trailblazer within referee ranks since making her International debut in the 2012 Women’s Sevens Challenge Cup.
She was in the middle of the 2014 Women’s Rugby World Cup final in Paris, becoming the first female to officiate Super Rugby in 2020.
Having achieved many 'firsts' as a referee, Perrett's goal is to 'Break the Bias' as she transitions into her post-refereeing career.
“It’s not something I’ve really thought about recently…I had to fight those battles but it wasn’t something I was fully aware of or understand until I looked and sat back and reflected on what it means and how it impacted me and my career,” she said on Rugby Heaven.
“Now my job (as Women’s Referee Development Officer) is to help break that bias for the women coming through now I’m able to recognise what it looks like.
“I’m in a person where I can have influence through my experiences and hopefully I can start changing that narrative.”
After retiring in January, Perrett is leading the Rugby Australia Match Official Female Leadership Program (RAMOFLP).
The leadership program is supported by the Sport Australia WLIS (women leadership in sport) grants and is designed to create sustainable pathways whilst ensuring female voices are heard within all levels of Rugby.
“The whole idea around that was I felt a lot of pressure being the token female in front of the camera, doing all the recruitment and retention pieces for our socials so I’ve implemented this engage with some of our up and coming female referees, referee coaches and administrators,” she explained.
“We want to create a sustainable pipeline of female match officials, we want to have the same percentage of female officials as female players in terms of participation which we’re not near at the moment.
“We want to have more female coaches involved as well and to have more females on the executive across our associations to ensure different voices and we can represent what our playing population is.
“Seeing females refereeing at the highest level just gives another pathway for women to be involved in the game.
“What I’ve loved about refereeing is there’s multiple pathways you can go down, you can referee at the elite level of the women’s game but also do the same in the men’s game which you can’t do as a player.”
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With Super Rugby Pacific set to celebrate 'Women in Rugby' Round, Perrett highlighted the importance of growing coverage and professionalism of the women's game to emphasise the incredible influence they have.
“It’s really important (to celebrate Women in Rugby Round). Women don’t have a strong history in Rugby but we play a massive role in getting the game going from the mum’s driving the kids to working on the executive,” Perrett added.
“It’s really important to celebrate that women we do have in the game...we have so much room to grow in the women’s space and it’s only going to get better. As you see, the more you invest in it, the better it comes and having women involved in the game is only a good thing.
“The women’s game has grown so much since I’ve first started refereeing and it’s only going to get bigger and better. I ran at a number of those National Rugby Championships and to see it now as a Super W product…they’re elite athletes now and it's amazing to see how it's grown.
“It’s only going to get better the more we invest in the players and other women alone.”
