Referees for five big ones
There are five big matches in the Rugby World Cup this weekend, and the men to referee them are Chris White, Wayne Barnes, Alan Lewis, Nigel Owens and Marius Jonker.
Chris White of England has the crunch match at Stade de France when Ireland and France meet. The winner will go some way to eliminating the loser.
In Lens up near the Belgium Border Wayne Barnes of England will referee the match between the two unbeaten sides in Pool A, South Africa and Tonga who have been something of a surprise package.
England and Samoa meet in Nantes. England have lost one and been rickety in one. Samoa, tough nuts, have lost two. Alan Lewis of Ireland referees that one.
In Montpellier, down in the South of France, unbeaten Australia play unbeaten Fiji in a Pool B match with Nigel Owens of Wales to referee.
In Pool C New Zealand and Scotland both have 10 points. Marius Jonker of South Africa referees that one.
Chris White has refereed just one match at the World Cup, when New Zealand hammered Portugal 108-13 in Lyon, an exercise in movement rather than management! That was White’s 40th test. He is 44 years of age and one of the most experienced referees at the World Cup, having refereed his first Test in 1998 when Georgia beat Russia. He is one month younger than Paul Honiss and has referee one Test fewer.
England’s most capped referee, he is no stranger to the World Cup, having been there in 1999 and 2003. In 2003 he refereed the semi-final between Australia and New Zealand, which the Wallabies won 22-10, and the 3rd-4th play-off in which New Zealand beat France 40-13.
White has refereed matches involving France 10 times and matches involving Ireland five times. France have won six of the 10, Ireland one of the five. He once referees France against Ireland – in 2004, also at Stade de France. On that St Valentine’s Day, France won 35-17, scoring six tries to four. This match will be the sixth between the two countries at Stade de France. So far France have won four, Ireland one.
Christopher Robert White from genteel Cheltenham in the south west of England, played for Swansea University while studying and then some 60 times in the centre for Cheltenham. He started refereeing in 1990 and refereed his first Test in 1998. His identical twin was also a promising referee.
Chris White was a schoolmaster at St Mary’s Church of England Junior School in Prestbury for over 20 years and now is a full-time referee. He says: “It’s a wonderful life.” At university he coached the Swansea University Ladies’ team and is now married to a wing in the side, Lynne. They have three children.
If White is the second oldest of the referees at the World Cup, Wayne Barnes is by far the youngest, born in 1979. This Test in Lens will be just his 11th.
He may be young but he has a fair amount of experience already. He started refereeing when at Whitecross School in Lydeny, where he was head pupil, and then, just over the border, at Monmouth School for 6th Form. From there he went to University of East Anglia to study law, before moving to London to undertake Barrister Training. His big interest is criminal law. Not that refereeing is involved in criminal law!
In 2001, aged 21, Barnes was the youngest member of England’s Panel of National referees. His first international appointment was as referee’s assistant in Russia in the winter of 2002. He was a referee in the Under-19 World Cup in Paris in 2003 and at the Under-21 World Cup in Argentina in July of 2005. He refereed first Premiership match in October 2003 and his first Heineken Cup match on 2005.
From December 2003 to March 2005 Barnes represented England on the IRB Sevens circuit, travelling to Dubai, Wellington, Los Angeles and Singapore. His Sevens refereeing culminated in Hong Kong in March 2005, where he refereed the semi-final of the Sevens World Cup.
In April 2005 Barnes became a full-time English referee, joining Chris White, Tony Spreadbury and Dave Pearson in the RFU Performance Department’s Elite referee Unit.
In 2006 he was selected to the IRB’s merit panel of 21 referees and refereed his first Test – Fiji vs Samoa. This year he had his first Six Nations Test, his first Tri-Nations Test and his first World Cup matches.
At this year’s World Cup he has had two matches – when New Zealand beat Italy 76-14 and when Ireland battled to survive against Georgia and scraped home 14-10.
He has refereed a South African match before – South Africa vs Australia at Newlands in the Tri-Nations earlier this year. Tonga will be new to him – or at least newish for he refereed the Pacific Islands against Wales last year.
Alan Lewis has the match between Samoa, who are smarting from defeat at Tongan hands, and England who are jittery about their ability to qualify after defeat at South African hands and unconvincing display against the USA. They have much uncertainty but the relief that Jonny’s back in town.
This will be Lewis’s second World Cup match this year. He was at the World Cups in 1999 and 2003 but mainly as a touch judge, refereeing just one match. But he has behind him a solid career. Better known as a cricketer who played 122 times for Ireland, he started refereeing in 1987 when he was 23. He refereed his first Test in 1998 and this one will be his 30th.
He had a great season in 2006-07, refereeing four finals, culminating in the Heineken Cup Final when London Wasps beat Leicester Tigers.
He has been involved in seven tests with England of which they have won three and lost four. Refereeing a match with Samoa playing will be a new experience for him.
He has had just one match at this year’s World Cup so far – Australia’s 91-3 romp against Japan. This one in Nantes may well not be a romp.
Like Alain Rolland Lewis is not a full-time referee. He is the managing director of an insurance brokerage in the LHW Insurances Group, which he likes being. Apart from anything else it takes him into a world other than refereeing.
Singer, entertainer, referee, Nigel Owens will be down in sunny, lively Montpellier near the Mediterranean for the match between the Wallabies and the Flying Fijians, the unbeaten teams in Pool B with 10 points each and the Fijians full of hope for a quarter-final berth, something they last achieved in 1987.
This will be his third match at the 2003 World Cup,. Earlier he refereed the match between Argentina and stern Georgia and then the match in Edinburgh when Scotland beat a disappointed Romania. This will be his 12th Test.
If the television broadcast enables you to hear the referee, you will hear tines that are unmistakably Welsh. Nigel Owens, 36 in June, is a West Walian, born in the small village of Mynyddcerrig with a population of about 150, about 10 miles from Llanelli. His home language is Welsh. He did not learn English till he went to school – Mynyddcerrig Primary School where there were only 17 pupils in the whole school. From there he went on to Gwendraeth Grammar School, whose Old Boys include Carwyn James, Gareth Davies and Jonathon Davies. Then after a year there, the education system changed and Nigel went to Maesyryrfa School which is a Welsh language school.
After school Nigel spent a year working as a farm hand till he went back to Maesyryrfa School to work as a technician, which he did for 13 years till December 2001 when he became a full-time referee.
Being West Walian, he had rugby all around him and played full back at secondary school but started refereeing in 1987 when he was only 16 “to help out the school as my sports teacher the late Mr John Beynon said I was no good as a player – and he was right”. 14 years later he became a full-time referee. After school Owens joined the Llanelli and District referees’ Society whose chairman he has been for the last six years or so.
In 2003 Owens refereed his first Test match – Portugal against Georgia. This year he had his first Six Nations match – England vs Italy at Twickenham. Then he refereed a Bledisloe Cup match – New Zealand vs Australia in New Zealand,. That was big.
Like Owens and Barnes, Marius Jonker is at his first World Cup and the Murrayfield match will be his third at the World Cup. So far he has refereed Fiji against Japan, which Fiji 35-31 and Japan nearly won with a thrilling late onslaught, and then Italy against Portugal which Italy battled to win 31-5.
Jonker, 39 years of age, is relatively new on the international scene. Unlike many of his colleagues he first had a full playing career before taking up refereeing at the age of 31 when he joined the Zululand Referees’ Society a subsociety of the KwaZulu Natal Referees’ Society. His progress was rapid.
In 2004 he went to the Under-19 World Championship and refereed the final. In 2005 when he made his debut in Super 12 and Currie Cup. That year, too, he refereed at the Under-21 World Championship where he refereed a semi-final. In 2005 he refereed his first Test – Uganda vs Zimbabwe, followed by Mauritius vs Burkina Faso. This will be his tenth Test and in those nine he has had Ireland vs Australian when Ireland won 21-6 in Dublin, the Calcutta Cup match at Twickenham when England won 42-20 and a Bledisloe Cup match in Sydney when Australia won 20-15.
That is a lot of concentrated experience.
Jonker is a loss control Manager for Bell Equipment in Richards Bay where he lives with his wife Belinda and son Rynhardt and daughter Brenda.
Asked earlier this year what his refereeing ambition was, Jonker said: “To referee at the World Cup and if I get the opportunity to referee a Currie Cup Final one day. It will be fantastic!”
He is half way there.
