global xsl:variable problem, value not being set

I am not sure what i am doing wrong ... but i am setting a global
xsl:variable which I then refer to within the template but in the
output transform the variable is always blank,

My Xslt [1] , and the Xml being transformed [2].  The original xml
file is quite big, but i have trimmed it down to demonstrate the
problem. I guess I am missing something simple :-(

(Using saxon 9)

[1] -- Xslt -- refName is always set to blank

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
      <xsl:output indent="yes" method="xml" encoding="UTF-8"/>

  <xsl:variable name="refName">
      <xsl:value-of select="//meta[@id='judgementNo']/@href" />
  </xsl:variable>

      <xsl:template match="/">
              <xsl:apply-templates/>
      </xsl:template>


      <xsl:template match="*">
              <xsl:element name="{node-name(.)}">
                      <xsl:for-each select="@*">
                              <xsl:attribute name="{name(.)}">
                                      <xsl:value-of select="."/>
                              </xsl:attribute>
                      </xsl:for-each>
                      <xsl:apply-templates/>
              </xsl:element>
      </xsl:template>


      <xsl:template match="*[@name='ref']">
                      <metavalue>
                              <xsl:attribute
name="test"><xsl:value-of select="$refName"
/></xsl:attribute>
                      </metavalue>
              </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>


[2] Xml file being transformed :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root
xmlns="http://www.metalex.org/1.0" name="root" id="d3e1">
 <container id="judgement" class="Sect1" name="body">
    <mcontainer name="meta">
       <mcontainer id="references_d3e151" name="references"
source="#bungeni">
          <meta name="TLCConcept" id="judgementNo"
href="/ontology/concept/judgement/Judgement/653/07" showAs="653/07"/>
       </mcontainer>
    </mcontainer>
    <hcontainer __BungeniMetaEditable="false" id="header"
class="Sect2" name="Header">
       <htitle id="d3e7" name="heading" class="5f">THE SUPREME COURT
OF APPEAL REPUBLIC OF XXXXXX</htitle>
       <container id="d5e10" name="fixing_hcontainer">
          <block name="p" id="d3e10" class="Standard">Judgement No
:<inline name="ref" class="mJudgementNo" href="839" id="d5e12">14 of
2007</inline>
          </block>
       </container>
       <container id="d5e16" name="fixing_hcontainer">
          <block name="p" id="d3e19" class="P3">Case number:<inline
name="ref" class="mCaseNo" href="5166" id="d5e18">653/07</inline>
          </block>
       </container>
    </hcontainer>
 </container>
</root>