- #ENGvAUS – Ref: Garces, ARs: Poite & Raynal. TMO: Skeen;
- #NZLvIRE – Owens, Gauzere & Gardner, Hughes;
- #WALvFRA – Peyper, Berry & Williams, Jonker
- #JPNvRSA – Barnes, O’Keefe & Pearce, Kitt
- 285 International matches across the four
- Peyper finally gets his 50th test match
- “Everyone remains in the reckoning for semis and finals selection”
World Rugby has announced the referees and other match officials for the quarter-finals of Rugby World Cup 2019 following a full review of performances over the 37 pool matches.
Jérôme Garcès (France), Nigel Owens (Wales), Jaco Peyper (South Africa) and Wayne Barnes (England) will take charge of the four matches in Tokyo and Oita over the weekend of 19-20 October.
The selection has been made following a full review of the 37 pool matches, and follows a tough start for the squad who found themselves receiving, what some saw as a critical statement after weekend one of the tournament. While match official performance will undoubtedly be in the spotlight at a time when World Rugby and the global rugby community continues to encourage behaviour change for high-risk tackles, World Rugby have now praised the squad for producing “clear, consistent and accurate decision-making” across the pool phase performances.
World Rugby Chairman Sir Bill Beaumont said, “Every team takes time to settle at a major event and I am delighted with how this group of exceptional match officials have responded across the pool stage.
“They are the best of the best and have played their full part in what will be remembered as an incredible pool stage.”
Adding to that, World Rugby High Performance 15s Match Official Manager Alain Rolland, said, “As a team, the match officials have worked hard to achieve consistency and clarity of decision-making during an exciting pool stage. Everyone remains in the reckoning for semis and finals selection.”
Appointments in full:
England v Australia
Referee: Jerome Garces (Fra)
ARs: Romain Poite (Fra) & Mathieu Raynal (Fra)
TMO: Ben Skeen (NZ)
New Zealand v Ireland
Referee: Nigel Owens (Wal)
ARs: Pascal Gauzere (Fra) & Angus Gardner (Aus)
TMO: Graham Hughes (Eng)
Wales v France
Referee: Jaco Peyper (SA)
ARs: Nic Berry (Aus) & Paul Williams (NZ)
TMO: Marius Jonker (SA)
Japan v South Africa
Referee: Wayne Barnes (Eng)
ARs: Ben O’Keefe (NZ) & Luke Pearce (Eng)
TMO: Rowan Kitt (Eng)
“Improved team performance”. Really? The inconsistency, missed flagrant penalties and consistent offside ignoring have led to referees and players around the world aghast. When will it finally be realised that only hard refereeing of the first 10-15 minutes in all areas will lead to players respecting the laws? The “Materiality” philosophy (ie filtering out everything that appears to have no immediate impact on play) leaves players confused and actually increases both the number of penalties thereafter and the award of potentially result determining penalties at crucial moments of a match. Whilst the RWC refs have tries to be consistent at holding in rucks, the regularity of flopping on top, diving in, entering from the side, falling ob=ver on the wrong side “accidentally”, lingering and loitering in the way of the attacking side and ludicrously crooked feeds to scrums, bring into ridicule the laws of the game as applied in the rest of the rugby world. The current standards – and especially continuing confusion and inconsistency regarding high tackles, shoulder charges and tackles in the air – certainly do not help the game as a spectacle, nor make it attractive to parents of young people thinking about a future in rugby. If this is the state of play in the pool stages watch what happens in the knock-out matches!
I have two questions to ask, following the pool matches: (1) does nobody ever put the ball in to the scrum straight; and (2) why are hookers consistently allowed to infringe on the laws when throwing the ball in to a lineout, by not standing behind the touch line? Most I have seen are getting away with standing ON the field of play with both feet!
Thanks for the comments George. 1) Scrum put in law was changed last season so the SH can line up on his side of the tunnel, which is not helping the perception youve voiced. Matched with the hooker having to strike, it never going to look straight, when it is now as per law 2) Insignificant – one for ARs to manage, but really isn’t a priority.