Accident takes Lawrence out of Tests

Mark Lawrence has had to withdraw from officiating at three Tests in the next three weeks because of a motor accident on Saturday night.

Lawrence was on duty at the Test between South Africa and Wales at Loftus Versfeld. On the Friday night he had refereed Griffons vs Sharks in Welkom and then driven home to Standerton late. Because he had been away then and was due to go to Australasia for three weeks, he decided to leave early from Pretoria while it was still light, rather than stay over.

Some 10 kilometres before Delmas he came over a blind rise and there was a Bakkie doing a u-turn in the road. He could not avoid the collision which wrote his car off, put the Bakkieriver in hospital and hurt Lawrence badly enough for him to withdraw from the Tests.

Lawrence has just refereed his way back onto the International Rugby Board’s panels and is regarded as one of the very best referees in the world. He was to have been the touch judge for New Zealand vs England in Christchurch, then the referee for Australia vs France in Sydney and then  the touch judge for the second Test in the series, Australia vs France in Brisbane.

In the accident the airbag threw up its protection but he hurt his knees against the dashboard, suffered a whiplash effect to his neck and broke his nose.

His wife and his father-in-law fetched him and took him to the hospital in Standerton where the doctor told him that he would probably be all right to referee in 10 to 14 days but that he could not guarantee that he would be 100% fit.

Lawrence decided not to take a risk and withdrew from all three matches, his place taken by Marius Jonker.

For Lawrence, who has worked so hard to get back onto the panel and was determined to stay there, the decision was a bitterly hard one. “I’m shattered. But it would not be fair for me to go ahead, knowing that I was perhaps not 100% fit.”