As mentors go for up-and-coming rugby referees you can do a lot worse than Chris White, and Craig Maxwell-Keys knows he has been lucky enough to learn from one of the very best.

Not that you can really consider Maxwell-Keys an up-and-coming referee these days – he’s well established on the Premiership circuit, regularly takes charge of European Challenge Cup games and was recently given his first international.

The 28-year-old has made a big impact since turning professional four years ago and credits White, who is the RFU’s national referee academy manager, for much of his development.

White and Maxwell-Keys have worked very well together for a good number of years now – including on White’s referee scholarship scheme at the University of Gloucestershire – so much so that Birmingham-born Maxwell-Keys has recently bought an apartment in Cheltenham just a long Danny Cipriani touch-finder from White’s home.

“I’ve popped down the M5 and my flat looks out over Cleeve Hill,” Maxwell-Keys said.

And although he’s new to this area he’s something of an older head when it comes to refereeing despite his relatively tender years.

“I started when I was 16 so I feel quite old now,” he laughed. “It feels that way because when you have a double-barrel surname you tend to stick in people’s minds!”

When you consider that White, who officiated in three World Cups, was still refereeing well into his 40s, it’s clear that Maxwell-Keys can go a very, very long way in the game.

So how did he get into refereeing?

“It happened by accident,” he said. “I was injured and I was watching rugby instead of playing it. But I was an awful spectator, I got too wound up, too agitated.”

Fortunately there was an escape route for Maxwell-Keys while he recovered from a broken wrist sustained playing rugby – it was the second time he had broken the wrist, the first when he was playing beach football with his brother Paul, three years his junior, on a family holiday in Spain.

That escape route was a referees’ course that was being run by his local rugby club, Lichfield.

Maxwell-Keys enjoyed the referees’ course – no surprise there! – and although he returned from injury to play a handful of games he soon realised that it was refereeing that really got the juices flowing.

He hasn’t played any rugby since his teenage years “apart from touch rugby at Twickenham with the other referees” which, he added with a chuckle, can be “quite competitive”.

And he can certainly remember his first refereeing experience.

“It was the Staffordshire Under-12 Festival, I’d just turned 17,” he said.

And he must have done quite well because the coaches of the top two teams asked him if he’d referee the final.

“That’s the only time I’ve been asked to referee a game by the coaches, it’s all been downhill ever since,” he laughed.

Maxwell-Keys has an easy way with words. “I was a 9 when I played, I’m a poacher turned gamekeeper,” he said. “There are quite a few of us – JP [Doyle], Karl Dickson, Christophe Ridley.”

The other thing that all four of them have in common, of course, is that they are top, top referees. That doesn’t happen by accident, it takes a lot of hard work and a wide variety of experiences on the journey towards the summit of the game.

“I refereed my brother when he was at King Edward School in Lichfield,” he recalled. “He was a centre and was captain of the 1st XV. I had to call him over and stick him on a team warning – doing it with a straight face was a challenge and it certainly made good conversation at the dinner table!

“It was a standing joke that King Eddie’s and Lichfield never won if I was refereeing.”

And while good humour and rugby go hand in hand, by now Maxwell-Keys was very serious about his refereeing.

He continued to take charge of games while studying chemistry at the University of Leicester – it was a four-year course – and for the two years after that when he was working in pharmaceuticals in Cambridge.

By now he was very much on the RFU’s – and Chris White’s – radar.

“He first came to watch me when I was 20 and on the Midlands Group,” said Maxwell-Keys.

“He coached me for the two years before I turned pro and then for two years after that. He’s my mentor.”

And while 24 is obviously a very young age to be going full-time as a referee – only Luke Pearce at 23 has been younger – Maxwell-Keys never had any doubts that that was what he wanted to do.

“It was a no-brainer when I got the tap from Twickenham and was offered a contract,” he said. “It turned my hobby into my job and I always knew I’d regret it if I didn’t accept.”

His parents weren’t quite so keen, however – “They said I’d got a good job and why throw it away,” Maxwell-Keys said – but the top brass at the RFU were certainly delighted that he was throwing in their lot with them.

Chris White is part of that ‘top brass’ of course and Maxwell-Keys has nothing but praise for the role he has played in his development.

“He’s an outstanding coach with great attention to detail,” said Maxwell-Keys. “He knows how to deal with people and speaks really well on all parts of the game.”

And Maxwell-Keys is clearly a good pupil. Last season he took charge of 17 Premiership games as well as a good number of European Challenge Cup games and this season he refereed his first international when Romania played the USA in Bucharest.

“I was chuffed to bits to be given the opportunity,” he said.

He’s come a long way in a short time but Maxwell-Keys can still remember the days leading up to him being offered a full-time contract.

“I was given the Army v Navy game at Twickenham,” he said. “That was in front of 80,000 people and it went really well. Then the following week I was given my first Premiership game at Newcastle. It was against Exeter – Chris was my number 4 – and that went well as well and that sealed the deal.”

Clearly his career is on a steep upward trajectory – he’s not long since returned from three weeks in Australia where he refereed in their National Championship – and he’s certainly ambitious.

“I want to break into international rugby on a regular basis,” he said. “Post Japan, that’s my aim. I want to referee at the best level I can and to referee in a World Cup would be the pinnacle.”

It’s not a given, of course, and Maxwell-Keys knows he will have to keep on performing to a very high level if he is to achieve his goals. But if anyone is up for the challenge, it’s clear that he certainly is.

So what is it about refereeing that he likes so much?

“It’s the challenge,” he said. “No two games are the same, there is always something different. To see how you react to different situations is exciting, it gets the heart rate moving that bit faster.

“Whether it’s parents shouting at you on a Sunday morning game or a big crowd at Welford Road, it’s the same.”

And how would he describe himself as a referee?

“I try to keep it low-key,” he said. “If players want to play the game I let them do that. I’m quite approachable and players can ask questions, I like to have a working relationship.

“In terms of managing a game you do that when the ball is out of play, that’s your chance to communicate.

“If you have done your preparation that gives you the confidence to look players in the eye and explain your decisions. They may not agree with you but they know where you’re coming from.

“And it gets easier as you go on because you get to know the players.”

Rugby takes up a huge amount of Maxwell-Keys’ time, of course, but when he does have some downtime he’s interested in other sports such as football – he’s a Villa fan – tennis and swimming.

He was a good swimmer and swam to county level – “I bucked the trend and swam butterfly, a stroke no one else likes,” he laughed – and during the rugby off-season he likes to do a bit of long distance running.

“I like to stick on my headphones and get away from the hustle and bustle of the 21st-century world,” he said.

So what music is he listening to when he goes out running?

“Anything that’s cheesy,” he laughed. “One Direction, Justin Bieber, Westlife. When we’re training at Twickenham I’m not allowed to be in charge of music!”

And while his music obviously isn’t to everyone’s taste; as you’d expect from someone with a chemistry degree, Maxwell-Keys is a pretty intelligent guy who may well return to that world when he hangs up his whistle.

“I could go back to my white lab coat,” he said. “In research you never know what the data will show, so just like being a rugby referee it’s a challenge.”

And he’s got plenty of other interests too. He attended both the recent literature and science festivals in Cheltenham and has just completed a masters course in sports and exercise psychology at Staffordshire University.

When he spoke to The Local Answer he was in the middle of rebuilding a greenhouse.

“It’s not easy but I haven’t cracked a pane yet,” he said with some pride, although clearly he wasn’t listening to his music while he worked!