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The Pat Kenny Show with Aviva

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Insurance on News Talk. One

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of the most successful and significant on-field

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rugby careers came to an end last

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weekend. Trailblazing referee Joy Neville

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hung up her whistle a decade on

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from hanging up her boots. As

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a rugby player, she won a grand slam, amassed

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a huge 70 caps. As

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a referee, she soared to even greater

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heights, becoming the first female to referee

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a pro 2014 match, then the first

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to perform as television match official duties

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in a major men's international competition. She

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took charge of the Women's World Cup

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final in 2017 and to date

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she is the only female to be selected for

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match official duties in a men's rugby world cup

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which she fulfilled in France last year. Joy

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Neville, good morning. Morning

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Pat, how are you? I'm great, I'm just

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listing those achievements and they're monumental. Thanks

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for that lovely introduction. I've

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covered everything but first of all

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I'll ask you why now, why have you decided it's

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time? It's

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the right time. You know there's something sweet about being

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able to go in your own terms. I did it

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as a player and the reason why I hung up

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my boots straight after a grand slam when I probably

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could have stayed on for another World Cup and the

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girls give me grief over it. But

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it was just to give back to my family, I have four

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of the brothers, mum and dad and sister-in-laws

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who've always supported me and

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friends. When you're in

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our case an amateur doing a professional job

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you have to commit so much and obviously

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every bit was worth it but

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you're not there for their moments. At that

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point, you know, priorities change. I met my

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now wife and then I hung

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up my boots and I was plagued

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about refereeing and eight months later I

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started to ref things. But

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to answer your question I think we have

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a young son now and you

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know whatever commitment's involved as a player

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it's significant as a referee and

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I'm ready to be at

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home more and I don't have regrets looking back and

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not seeing my young son

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growing up. So the point

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is about refereeing at that level you're going to be

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traveling here there in Yarns so pretty much every weekend

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you're going to be missing. Well

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as an Irish person yes because you're involved in

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URC and it's abroad every weekend like I was

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way over 230 days the year last year

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between two workups of women's and men's and

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obviously other competitions so yeah

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it's significant really. Now

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during your playing career you were

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at the mercy of the referee. So

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I'm wondering how did you normally interact

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with the referee you obviously you were

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captain for some of those key matches

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and therefore you were the one who

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would be the spokesperson. Were you cheeky?

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Were you firm?

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Who have you

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been talking to? I have a few

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on a coffin in the back of

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my mind that it's always snagging me

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about living in the edge. I remember

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we had a referee performance manager he's

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come in and he he'd

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look at our games this is the year that

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we won the Grand Slam and he had a

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massive part enough winning to minimize our penalties and

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every time was joy you got away with penalty

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here joy you know and the girls used to

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slide because it was always my name that was

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highlighted. I think with a certain

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amount of experience you know what and

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how to get away with certain situations so

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it's funny. I hear the commentators all

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the time talking about you know it's

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the picture you show to the referee

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particularly in the scrum so

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the lads in the front row show something

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to the referee that indicates they're not the

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ones who were infringing it's the other crowd. Yeah

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well look it's all about pictures and if

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you can show as positive a picture and

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even more positive than your opposition you're probably

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going to win those 50-50s but as you

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well know the scrum is the most difficult

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area to referee. Now when you finished

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as a player how come

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you became a referee I mean was it

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an ambition or was it serendipitous? No

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I never contemplated refereeing I think it

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was more a stigma attached to it,

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I think it's significantly less now,

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thankfully, because there's so many, so

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many benefits to it. And I

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remember I got a call from a guy, he'd referred

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three of our cups and it was a

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couple of days after I hung up my boots and

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he said, would you be interested in refereeing? And I

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said, absolutely not. No interest whatsoever. And he said, he

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come back to me in a few months and he

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did. And I picked up the phone to a guy

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really high up in the rugby circles and I just

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wanted to know because, you know,

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pass it, when you're going to give it 100%, you want to

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know what has been achieved and what you want to

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achieve. And I knew no female referees in

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the All-Ireland League and I wanted to ask

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this gentleman, I said, do you think it's

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possible, I trusted his opinion, for

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a female to referee in the top league in Ireland, he

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was absolutely not joy. And that was back in 2015. And

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I said, right, this guy was in his

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mid-50s, I thought that's

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a big statement. So we finished the conversations, I put

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the phone down, I picked it up today and I

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said, I'm in. And

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I suppose like, we

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can be one of two people, we can take

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that opinion of face value and leave it

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there. Or we can be the person who

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has such confidence and puts a bloody good

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plan in place. And thankfully, I refereeed that

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first game a year and a half later.

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So that was the AIL, but then

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you went on to even greater

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things. The difference between

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refereeing the male game and the

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female game, are there significant differences?

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It depends. I think

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the biggest difference is there's less cheating in the women's

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games, they just want to get on and play and

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they don't search for those chrome

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penalties. I think

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the game has grown significantly. And now what you

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see is a very, very entertaining

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game. Most people would say they prefer

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to see the female international game of

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the male counterparts because of the speed,

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the collisions,

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if not just much, that of the male

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game. But no, I think

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look, as a referee, you need that credibility.

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The first 10 minutes make accurate calls and

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you buy in by the players. There's nothing

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to do with anything else but being

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fair and being credible with the decision.

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I was wondering though in terms of

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women reffing a women's game, men

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reffing men's game and then

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switch it around. You've got a man reffing a

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woman's game or a woman reffing a man's game.

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Do the players treat you differently, the males,

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because you're a woman? Are

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they less cheeky? No,

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absolutely not. Again, I don't think it

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makes any difference to be honest. You

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can cop something in your own mind when you'd be

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treated with the same amount of respect and that's certainly

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what I did at the very beginning. But what I

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soon realised was the players, whether

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they're male or female, they don't care who

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the referee is in the middle, regardless of

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label, as a type of gender,

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religion, sexuality. It makes no difference once

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in the first 10 minutes you

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work hard to make credible calls

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and accurate calls. Once they see

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that, it's just creating a platform

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for players to play and you

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get to totally buy-in. Yeah.

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The problem I suppose for all refs nowadays

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is that you've got the television match official

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and you can be second-guessed. It's

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very interesting to see the way some refs call it.

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They say, I have a try here. If

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there's anything you can see that makes it

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other or some of

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them ask for a more general verdict

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from the television match official, they

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protect themselves by not committing. Do

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you know the technology has grown so much?

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It's a double-edged sword. It's a great thing.

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It's an awful thing because you

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now have so many camera angles. You're damned if

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you do and you're damned if you don't. Certainly,

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one thing that I learned going into this game

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from an aspect of a player is there's room

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for error as a player. You

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miss a tackle. Your team will pick you up and

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go next one. Post-match analysis,

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yeah, there is really... expectation

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that we will knock on

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a ball or miss a tackle. But as

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a match official there is this unfair, unrealistic

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expectation that we're going to get everything right

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and we're going to make accurate calls for

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80 minutes but it's not really possible. And

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the technology does help us but the

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technology completely throws us under the bus

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at times as well. Well

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it's all over as far as

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you're concerned you've retired but

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what next for you? I'm just

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really excited and happy again I've got to

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make this call on my own terms. I've

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had some amazing times, I've met some amazing

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people and had massive support by it by

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my own Irish colleagues,

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family and friends and I'm

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ready to spend time with those people

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who've been so supportive in

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I suppose everything that I've achieved it's because

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of them and been

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able to lean on their shoulders for advice. I'm

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after recently being given an

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opportunity to come in with where Rugby is the head

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coach of the Ali female referees and

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I'm passionate about giving back and supporting the

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new talents, the talent that's there currently and

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with the aim of identifying and creating

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better pathways and supporting and developing the

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current referees that are already in place.

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Joy thank you very much for joining

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us congratulations on surviving two careers

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as a rugby player and as a

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referee and we look forward to all

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your future endeavors.