Former top rugby league official Gerry Kershaw is back in the big time after being named as the referee's 'coach in the stand' for tonight's Super League Grand Final at Old Trafford, writes Dianne Hillaby.

MAN WITH A VIEW: York's Gerry Kershaw prepares to channel his energies for tonight's Grand Final experience

Kershaw, who is head of the upper school at Easingwold School, will communicate with man in the middle Stuart Cummings throughout the showdown between Bradford Bulls and St Helens.

It will be his job to inform Cummings if either team commits repeat offences, such as encroaching at the play-the-ball, which the referee is not able to spot.

He explained: "I'll sit at the top of the stand with a microphone and earpiece speaking to Stuart as the game goes on.

"I will make observations. I'm looking for positives. The last thing Stuart wants to hear is a kick up the backside if he has made an error.

"In a recent game I had to tell him that one of the loose forwards was detaching from the scrum before the ball was out, and I may suggest one time that a team is half a metre forward at the play-the-ball.

"Recently I noticed the coach of a team was coming on to the pitch as a water carrier and coaching."

The 'coach in the stand' is a new concept which was introduced this season and, like the video referee, it has only been used at Sky-televised matches.

Next season there are plans to expand it to every Super League fixture, which Kershaw believes will have a positive effect on the game.

"It has tremendous advantages, particularly when you are at the top of the stand and have an overview," said Kershaw, who also has personal reasons for giving it his backing.

"It's lovely to still be involved. If I was Stuart Cummings I wouldn't want anybody in the stand who hadn't been there and done that, and people like myself are few and far between."

Kershaw, 56 later this month, has certainly been there and done that during his 34-year refereeing career that began in Oldham when he was 16.

He reached the pinnacle of the sport in the 1970-71 season when he became a Grade One referee and went on to take charge of the 1980-81 Challenge Cup Final at Wembley between Widnes and Hull KR, the Lancashire Cup Final in the same season, the Regal Trophy Final in 1973-74 and 1989-90, the Floodlit Trophy in 1973-74, plus various internationals featuring Australia, England, Wales and Great Britain Under-24s.

His retirement at the age of 50 coincided with the arrival of Greg McCallum as the Rugby Football League's referees controller and Kershaw was invited to be among those who formed the nucleus of the Referees' Advisory Board.

He immediately got involved with video refereeing when that was introduced and, more recently, the 'coach in the stand'.

He believes there is more pressure on the video ref who watches the action from a broadcasting van and has to make crucial, try-scoring decisions.

That responsibility on this occasion again falls to former Grade One ref, David Campbell. It will be the fourth match in succession that Cummings, Kershaw and Campbell have worked together, but Kershaw admitted he will still feel a twinge of nerves with almost 50,000 spectators at Old Trafford and many more on television.

"You are nervous whether you're in the van outside the ground or in the stand," he said.

"I'm nervous for myself and for Stuart. If he does badly then it reflects on me as well."

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