Peyper gets special whistle
Before the match, in the depths of Twickenham, Peyper will call the two captains, Chris Robshaw of England and Akapusi Qera of Fiji, for the toss of the coin to decide how the match will start.
The start will be when Peyper blows his whistle.
The coin for the toss and the whistle to start are treasures in the famous rugby museum at Palmerston North on New Zealand's North Island.
The coin was first used at the toss of the 1925 match between England and New Zealand at Twickenham when the All Blacks won 17-11.
The captains, Wavell Wakefield of England (later Lord Wakefield of Kendall) and Jock Richardson of New Zealand and the referee, Albert Freethy of Wales, came out onto the field together to do the toss but the referee did not have a coin.
Seated nearby and seeing the predicament was a New Zealander, DG Gray of Dunedin. Immediately Gray came for ward and proffered a florin. The toss was done and the coin returned to Gray.
Gray was so excited by this that he had the coin embossed with a rose on one side and a fern on the other. In 1973 Hector Gray presented the coin to the rugby museum. In 1987 it was brought forth when Bob Fordham of Australia refereed the first match of the first World Cup.
It is not just the coin that the museum will send to Twickenham. There is also the famous Evens-Freethy whistle, an instrument part glorious and part ignominious.
The whistle originally belonged to Gill Evans, a Welshman who was refereed under an English banner and so refereed many matches in Wales involving the 1905 All Blacks, the 1906 Springboks, the 1908 Australians, and the 1912 Springboks. He refereed two Tests in his career – England vs New Zealand in 1905 at Crystal Palace and Wales vs Australia at Cardiff Arms Park. His nationality was clearly unclear.
His career over Evans gave his big whistle to Albert Freethy, a schoolmaster and a Welsh referee. Freethy used the whistle at the last time rugby football was played at the Olympic Games – in 1924 when the USA beat France, which means that the USA are still the Olympic rugby champions. When New Zealand played England at Twickenham in 1925 Freethy was appointed to the match and again he used the whistle.
There was early fighting between the two packs of forwards and then, eight minutes into the game, Freethy sent off Cyril Brownlie of New Zealand for foul play, kicking an opponent it was said. It was the first time that a player had been sent off in a rugby Test. (The next player sent off in a Test was Colin Meads on New Zealand in 1967. It has become more common subsequently.) In all he refereed 16 Tests.
After the Twickenham Test, Freethy gave the whistle to the manager of the All Blacks, Stan Dean who gave it to the museum in 1969 when the museum came into being.
Bob Fordham used the coin and the whistle in 1987, Jim Fleming in 1991, Derek Bevan in 1995, Paddy O'Brien in 1999, Paul Honiss in 2003, Tony Spreadbury in 2007 and George Clancy in 2011. Now it is Jaco Peyper's turn.
