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Welsh Rugby Union
  • 12/03/2025
Transcript
00:00My name is Ben Brakespeare. I'm a professional referee for the Welsh Rugby Union. I started
00:21my refereeing journey when I was 17 years old. I started off refereeing school and community
00:26games and over the years I have worked my way up through the ladder to now refereeing
00:31the professional game. My colleagues have been massively supportive of me throughout
00:46my journey and the support that I've received from the Welsh Rugby Union has been immense.
00:50I also balanced this career with a successful career with the South Wales Fire and Rescue
00:53Service who once again are highly supportive of me and the role that I play as a referee.
00:58The commitment and understanding that they have alongside my operational role allows
01:03me to successfully balance my rugby, my travel and high performance environment as well as
01:09maintaining a job with the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service. Growing up I think everyone
01:14dreams, especially coming from such a small tight knit country, everyone dreams of playing
01:19for Wales and putting that red jersey on so growing up as a youngster watching some of
01:23those boys play, being an outside half of myself, you look at the likes of Neil Jenkins,
01:27Dan Biggar, James Hook, boys who have grown up playing that jersey, they were definitely
01:31inspirations for me growing up as a young child. From the age of six years old just
01:41playing rugby in school with one of my mates and I remember he said that evening that he
01:45was going to go rugby training and I remember going home and I was begging my dad, dad can
01:49I go, please can I go, please can I go and he took me down, it was a cold wet Wednesday
01:53night and I remember it like it was yesterday. I think it is a change of career path, I don't
01:58think anybody grows up wanting to be a referee, as I mentioned a lot of, well everybody in
02:03Wales who plays rugby grows up wanting to play for Wales. I think the thing for me was
02:07when I realised how far I would have gone playing, I had a good chat with Nigel Owens
02:12who was my mentor and had a good conversation around what opportunities were available to
02:16a referee and how far that would take me. So I made that jump again before I came up
02:21at the age of 18 and I'm very thankful for all the advice and support to get me into
02:26the professional game.
02:26Are you up for a challenge?