Andrew Carney: Back from Budapest
Published Fri 12 Aug 2022
ANDREW CARNEY: BACK FROM BUDAPEST
This week we caught up with our Water Polo NSW Director of Referees Andrew Carney who has recently returned from Budapest where he was selected as the Australian representative referee for the FINA World Championships.
How did you feel to be selected as the Australian representative at the FINA World Championships.
I was totally surprised to be appointed by the FINA TWPC to the championships. Particularly as over the past 12 months I was appointed by the TWPC to the Junior Men’s world champs in Prague in August last year and World League Intercontinental Cup in Lima, Peru in March this year.
I have always viewed it as a privilege to represent my country as a referee at tournaments
Can you give us a summary of the games you were appointed to, how many games did you referee and what was the schedule like?
Canada 7 v Italy 7 (Women) with George Stavridis
Italy 10 v Hungary 9 (Women) with Boris Margeta
Hungary 21 v Brazil 5 (Men) with Frank Ohme
Montenegro 20 v Brazil 5 (Men) with Frank Ohme
USA 24 v South Africa 2 (Men) with Adil Ambetov (crossover)
For the first week the Tournament was spread out over 4 cities/ towns - Budapest, Sopron, Szeged and Debrecen. The second week was Budapest and Sopron. Referees were allocated to each location for the whole week with some referees from Budapest travelling for specific games. I was allocated to Budapest for the full two weeks. The round games in Budapest were at 7:30pm and 9:00pm.
What were your highlights?
The highlights for me were:
Just being there.
Refereeing the Italy v Hungary Women’s game in front of 6000+ spectators and the Hungary v Brazil men’s game with 7000+ spectators.
The opportunity to watch and referee with the best referees in the world. Frank Ohme and Boris Margeta ended up doing the USA v Hungary Women’s gold medal game and Boris then, along with George Stavridis did the Italy v Spain Men’s gold medal game.
What were your key take aways or learnings from the whole experience?
Senior world championships are not just a step up from junior men’s world championships but a giant leap.
No matter how experienced you think you are you always need to know the rules and continue to learn and refine your refereeing.
The VAR is a very important tool to use during games to help assist the referees.
What were your highlights off of pool deck, any interesting connections, cultural experiences?
Generally, most of the referees based in Budapest would go for a walk around the city each morning. The Parliament is a spectacular building during the day and even more so at night.
Seeing some of the referees for the first time in many years was good.
Are there any further details you’d like to share with us?
As part of the trip, I joined the Australian women’s and men’s teams for a training camp in Barcelona prior to us all travelling to Budapest. Getting the opportunity to referee both teams usually twice a day each immensely helped me prepare for the games in Budapest
I want to thank both Paul Oberman and Tim Hammill as well as all their support staff and teams for their support during the training camp and World Championships.
