The key to the successful outcome of such exercise is first and foremost the quality of the human material, and in this respect the tournament in Bucharest was fortunate enough to benefit from the services of three very talented young referees in Carlo Damasco of Italy, Rob Debney of England and France's Romain Poite.
The senior member of the group at 34, Damasco will, from 1 July, become Italy's first full-time professional referee. He has been refereeing part-time since 2004 and this year he will join the staff of the Italian Rugby academy in Livorno as a lecturer and full-time referee.
Born in Naples, the former Italy Under 19 scrum half is steadily advancing through the ranks of European officials, having refereed Heineken Cup matches and the final of the 2005 European Shield between Worcester and Auch, as well as been on touch judge duty in the Six Nations and beyond.
Great professional experience
"This is an excellent opportunity to develop as a match official. It provides the right kind of level of competition, the intensity and the edge are there, especially since many players here were competing for RWC places and overall it is a great professional experience," Damasco said.
"Besides, the environment is fantastic, with the new stadium full of people and atmosphere. It really gives you a buzz. As far as refereeing is concerned, I have done three matches and the work we have done together to evaluate the performance was tremendous. I felt that I did not handle too well the scrum engagement at the match between Georgia and the Emerging Springboks, and we had a look at the DVD and discussed it in detail."
Thirty-three year-old Debney, who hails from Leicester, has been a full-time referee since 2001. A multilingual expert - in addition to English he is fluent in French, Italian and Russian - he is a member of the RFU panel, and has already done several international matches and has been a regular on the IRB Sevens circuit for the past few years.
"We take our rugby very seriously indeed, which does not mean that the enjoyment element is missing. This type of tournament is very useful for developing not only personal skills and ability, but also is good for the team spirit," Debney observed.
Bright future in refereeing
The youngest of the three match officials is Romain Poite, a 31-year-old Toulouse referee, who gave up a promising career in the Police force to become a full-time referee. He played rugby since the age of 12, taking up the whistle at 19 as he explained "being too young to become a coach."
This was indeed a very fortunate decision as he now has established himself as one of the top three French referees and looks forward to a very bright future. I saw him in his first international match between Morocco and Namibia, a match he handled flawlessly, including a much-debated, but perfectly accurate decision to send off Jalij Narjisi, the captain of the host team.
In addition to the three professional referees, having a team of touch judges which included top match officials from the participating countries, including Ricardo Bonaccorsi of Italy, Georgia's Ucha Narimanidze, Daniel Koen of Namibia, South Africa's Cobus Wessels, Francisco Pastrana of Argentina and Horatiu Bargaunas from Romania, was of great benefit to the tournament.
The other factor in the success of the operation is careful and sensitive management, and in this respect the refereeing team in Bucharest had in former Irish international referee and current IRFU Referee Training Officer David McHugh an excellent leader.
Praise for hosts Romania
The third factor is the support of the Host Union, in this case the Romanian Rugby Federation, who did an absolutely outstanding job in providing well-trained support officials, the fourth and fifth referees, selected from the local talent and overall excellent training facilities.
"This has been an excellent opportunity for developing the next generation of match officials, both for the three full-time officials and the touch judges from the six countries," observed manager McHugh.
"All referees managed the games very well, allowing the game to flow. It is important to understand that referees are facilitators. They don't create continuity; they create space and time by keeping the teams on-side. The players responded well and I al pleased to say that this was reflected in the standard of discipline. The average penalty count per game was 18, which is not too bad.
"We have reviewed every match and discussed it within the group. The input of Jim Irvine from the IRFU was fantastic, and the boys responded very well. But more than anything else, we must praise the way the tournament was organised, the high standard of facilities and the excellent management. It was a tremendous experience."