Ladies Gaelic Football

36 // Ladies Gaelic Football Association INTERNATIONAL EXPERTISE PEIL Summer | Issue No 2 | Volume 14 u Carty began her professional career as a Psychiatric nurse followed by a sidestep into Psychotherapy. In her own words "it really was one of the best educations to go through". Su's specialist area became Child and Adolescent mental health, which again while being a challenging field also served up an education in human life and human behaviour. As Su recounts her experiences working in this area her descriptions of the context of her work then have similarities to what she is doing now if you listen closely enough. "So obviously part of the job would be to work with the young person themselves on individual problems they were having but there was also a lot of work with the parents. Often surrounding the problems the child was facing there would have been a lot of stress and friction within the family unit. A lot of the family work was about empowering the parents to be more effective. Not to see their child's problems at their fault but rather figure out what behaviours they needed to exhibit in order for the family to function more effectively." While the demographics may be entirely different there are distinctly similar principles at play in Su's current job. After getting herself knee deep in rugby for over a decade (more on that later) Su has recently embarked on a new endeavour. She is now a self-employed consultant who specialises in working with Business owners and teams of people to provide tools that will remove stress or disconnect within teams. Just like the family unit her consultancy work sees her balancing solving individual problems by looking at how the bigger structure of the business or professional team is supporting each of its members to be as effective as possible. So what about the rugby piece? "Well it all started like most great things, over a cup of coffee on a lunch break! I was in St James' at the time and having lunch with a colleague. Rugby came up in conversation and before I knew it I was agreeing to head down to Guinesses' Rugby Club to give it a try. I loved it." Over the course of the next decade Su's journey through rugby would take her from Provincial meetings to World Rugby Conferences and back again. She served as president of the IWRFU and in 2009 Su was appointed as the first World Ruby Women's Development Manager, a post she held for seven years. Under Su's guidance female participation in Rugby increased globally from just over 4% of the playing population to 25% of the global playing population and the profile of women and girls in the game has transformed globally as history was made with Rugby 7s debut in Rio 2016. When Su began her role with World Rugby she firstly focused on participation rates and the attitudes that surrounded females playing the game. As she made progress in that area she began to widen her focus to include referees and coaches. From her own admission at this point Su knew very little about refereeing. "To be honest I had no idea about refereeing. I didn't understand why someone would want to be a referee or the challenges associated with it. So I decided that I would train to become a referee. Going through the process was invaluable and it turns out I thoroughly enjoyed it even though before I started I was sure I would have no interest in pursuing it." Su is a World Rugby Referee Educator and is on the Leinster Rugby referee panel. A big change from the woman who was sure she would have no interest in refereeing. Su spent time with the LGFA National Referees as part of one of their development days. Sharing her insights from her professional background and also her experience of her personal development in refereeing was invaluable for the group. One of the themes for Su's session was how to manage your thoughts and actions after you have realised that you have made a mistake on the pitch. According to Su it is very easy for referee's to hold onto mistakes, not only for the remainder of the game but also when they have left the pitch and are supposed to be living the rest of their lives. "Referees give so generously of themselves, they shouldn't suffer. Players, Coaches and Referees make mistakes. It is going to happen so we need to empower the referees to move on, to ensure that the mistake does not have any further impact on the game and that the individual does not suffer any hardship as a result of making a human error" Not only has Su an extremely wide foundation of knowledge to draw from in order to empower and support individuals but her natural positive and engaging personality allows her make strong connections with those who she is communicating with. To date her engagement with the LGFA to date has been extremely positive and hopefully we will be seeing more of her in the future. S World Rugby Referee Educator Su Carty spent time with LGFA Inter- county Referees Let Go of the Mistake

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