Jutge - back in the middle
In June this year Joel Jutge refereed a Test between England and South Africa at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria. Now he will be refereeing the World Cup match between England and South Africa at Stade de France in Paris. It will be different.
The difference will be more than a change of venue or hemisphere or climate.
The teams will be different. England will and South Africa will both have their best available sides this time. South Africa will start with seven of the players who started against England, England with four of the team that started against South Africa.
The situation – the World Cup – is different. There is so much for an ambitious team to play for, and both these teams are ambitious.
Before the Loftus Test, Jutge said of the September match: “It will be different. When they meet in France it will be different as well – a different country, different players, different occasion. “
It will be different, but the referee will be the same eager referee that he always is. – better known to the English players because of things like the Heineken Cup but not unknown to the South Africans.
Jutge is France’s top referee, one of only three full-time referees in France. The others are Christophe Berdos and Romain Poite. Before becoming a full-time referee, Jutge, from the city of Cahors north of Toulouse, on the River Lot, right in the heart of rugby-mad France, worked as a technician for Electricite de France (EDF). He his wife and two daughters live in Cahors.
He was born in Lavaur, not far away from Cahors, on 5 April 1966, and started playing rugby at the age of seven. At 18 he was playing scrum-half for Colomiers, then a top French club. At the age of 25, injured when tackled by the great Abdel Benazzi, he started refereeing.
In 1991 Joel started refereeing, and his career has been highly successful. In 1999 he refereed his first Test – Spain vs Fiji. In 2002 he refereed his first Six Nations match, Wales vs Scotland at Millennium Stadium and in the same year the final of the Heineken Cup, Leicester Tigers vs Munster, also at Millennium Stadium. In 2003 he refereed at the World Cup in Australia and is one of a dozen referees chosen to referee at the 2007 Rugby World Cup. He refereed matches involving South Africa in the Tri-Nations twice – against Australia in Sydney and against New Zealand at Carisbrook. He also refereed the first Test between the All Blacks and the Lions.
In fact he has been all over the world and refereed on its great grounds. He has refereed in South Africa once before – South Africa vs Ireland at Newlands. This will be his first Loftus Versfeld experience, but then this year he had that dramatic, emotional match at Croke Park in Dublin when England played Ireland at the home of Gaelic Games.
His first match at the World Cup was the interesting encounter between struggling Ireland and increasingly confident Namibia, which Ireland won 32-17. That was his 30th Test. He is an experienced campaigner.
