ANDREW BRACE CAN tell you all about the highs and lows of being a professional rugby referee.
The 35-year-old has been the man in the middle for Six Nations games, a URC final, the Challenge Cup final, the Bledisloe Cup, and lots more tough, tight Tests matches. He’s now getting ready to be one of the main referees in the World Cup for the first time.
But he knows about the tests of character involved. He understands that with the territory comes the criticism, the questioning, the self-recrimination.
After the 2020 Autumn Nations Cup final between France and England, he was on the receiving end of sickening abuse. There were disgraceful messages posted online under an obituary for his late father, Gary, as well as death threats for Brace himself.
He learned plenty from that episode but as he gets set for the next couple of months in France, he knows he’s doing his old man proud. Gary was in his thoughts when World Rugby’s head of match officials, Joël Jutge, called to let Brace know he’d made it.
“It was a bittersweet moment because he is one of the first people I wanted to ring and say I had been selected,” says Brace.
“I remember going back when I got the France v Italy game, my first Six Nations game [in 2020], he was one of the first I rang.
“He organised everyone to come over to the game and then he passed three weeks before that game.
“You never move on from it, but it gets easier over time and I’d like to think I’m doing him proud with the games I’ve been lucky to get since his passing.
“I’m going into my first World Cup as a referee and I’ll certainly be looking up to him in that first game.”
Brace was an assistant referee at the last World Cup and the only Irish match official to make that 2019 tournament. Along with his own progress to being one of the 12 main referees, Brace is proud that there are three other Irish match officials at this tournament in assistant referee Chris Busby, and TMO pair Joy Neville and Brian MacNiece.
It’s the first time in two decades that Ireland has had four officials and speaks volumes of the focus the IRFU has put into developing this side of the game.
Ex-Test referee John Lacey has been an important figure behind the scenes, taking on a role as high performance referee coach and talent ID manager after hanging up his own whistle. Brace says the IRFU has been excellent for support with nutrition, strength and conditioning, and psychology, while Lacey’s expertise has been invaluable since 2019.
“I don’t think Johnny has missed one live game since he started,” says Brace. “We all make fun out of him in terms of how much rugby he watches. He just doesn’t switch off. It’s great to have that resource.”
The Irish crew are a tight-knit group who train together and review games with each other openly. This is the side of refereeing we don’t generally see – the excruciating detail in which their performances are picked apart.
“Sam, my partner, said it to me the other morning, ‘You’re doing a review again?’” says Brace with a laugh.
Immediately after a game, he gets notes from Lacey and replies to them. Brace has a joint-review with his TMO too, while he has to undertake a self-review on a central World Rugby system. In that review, he picks out three successes from the game, two areas to think about, and one key fix for the next match.
The World Rugby selectors meet early in the week and review all the referees’ performances, feeding that back to them individually. Brace explains that he will also generally be dealing with queries from coaches whose teams were involved in the game.
“There could be five or six different channels of review before the game is put to bed,” he says. “On top of that, you’re prepping for the next game.”
All of these reviews help to add to the thick skin a referee needs. They have to be able to bounce back from errors, just as players must, but they’re human beings too. They’re not immune to the effects of criticism and scrutiny.
On that front, Brace has benefitted greatly from dealing with former Dublin footballer Kevin McMenamin, who has been working with the IRFU’s referees on their mental skills since last year.
Brace explains that McMenamin has helped him to shift away from a mindset of trying to please people with his refereeing or chasing a perfect performance that was unattainable. They speak at least once a month and more often when there have been big incidents or when big games lie ahead. McMenamin also works with the referees in on-pitch scenarios that test them under pressure.
The training and psychology work helps, but there’s nothing like experience. Brace has learned the hard way at times. While the abuse after was unacceptable, he points out that there was a big error in that 2020 clash between France and England when he and his officials missed a late knock-on from the English.
“You get those scars from big games,” says Brace. “You’re trying to fix it the next time you get a big game.
“It’s about being better for those moments that haven’t gone right. The last play of that game where we don’t get it right when it’s a knock-on that leads to a penalty, they kick to the corner and it goes to extra time.
“We didn’t get the right balance in that game. By being in more pressurized moments, when games are tight, the more experience you get of that, the better you’re going to be.”
Brace outlines how important his relationship with the assistant referees and TMO is. He needs to trust them and they need to understand that there are moments when they don’t need to come in and flag something with him if it’s had no material effect on the game.
“We know you can find a decision at every single breakdown, phase, every moment,” says Brace. “It’s about getting the best decision for that moment.”
He has also had to work on his interaction with the players.
Advice from his dad and also Ireland forwards coach Paul O’Connell has helped.
“My dad was always the best around the communication side of things as a teacher and chief executive of the General Teaching Council for Wales. I used to come off the pitch and he would tell me that I wasn’t myself. I think it comes with experience, it’s an art.
“The biggest thing as a referee is being able to communicate effectively.
“I spoke to Paulie around it and he was saying that the referee has got to allow the players to have their voice. It’s listening to understand rather than listening to reply. I was quick to reply but I wasn’t actually listening to what was said. It was a really key message for me allowing them to have their say. Players might actually have a key point.
“You don’t want that confrontation, you want to build a relationship and connection with the players in the right manner. The games where I haven’t got it right is when I’ve got kinda cross.
“Johnny [Lacey] tells us that there’s always a time for a bit of John Wayne, but not all the time. It’s being firm but not aggressive. You can be firm and have authority but still have that soft-hands approach. The last while, I have found that’s worked for me.”
The advice from O’Connell and Ireland’s other coaches has been beneficial to Brace’s growth as a referee, as has getting into Irish camp to referee training sessions as often as possible. He and the other Irish refs also train with the provinces whenever they can.
One of the reasons Lacey has pushed them to be in with the Irish teams is because it helps so much with their understanding of the set-piece, particularly the scrum – an area in which most referees never set foot when they played.
“I’m also getting a view from a scrum expert, a maul expert,” adds Brace. “We can bounce different ideas off each other.”
World Rugby hired former All Blacks scrum guru Mike Cron as a consultant in this area of the game, with the Kiwi specialist reviewing all of the scrums from top Test matches in order to further the referees’ understanding.
Brace enjoys engaging with current coaches and welcomes them getting in touch after games for any clarifications or questions. He believes it’s only beneficial if referees and coaches are working off the same hymn sheet.
Brace sits on a World Rugby Head Contact Process working group with other referees, TMOs, ex-players, judicial officers, and coaches including Jacques Nienaber. They meet once a month a discuss clips involving head contact. Sometimes there is consensus around what the decision should have been, sometimes there are very different opinions.
And sometimes Brace and the other referees have to change their view on incidents. He points to the recent example involving Argentina’s Juan Cruz Mallía colliding with the head of South Africa’s Grant Williams after blocking down his kick.
Brace ruled that it wasn’t a penalty but Williams was cited and then given a two-week ban.
“I had to shift around that Mallía incident,” says Brace. “It was a genuine attempt to go for the ball, a realistic position to get the ball because he charged it down.
“We’ve never seen that before, so then obviously he followed through and it was cited and deemed reckless. I had to shift around that because it was a different approach.
“We can probably do more around educating people about our decisions, giving some background around why decisions are arrived at. Otherwise, people on the outside world are wondering why.”
While there is a fairly collegiate atmosphere within the game, Brace has had to learn to distance himself from the bile on social media in the aftermath of some games.
“I know that if I want to go looking for it, it’s going to be there,” says Brace. “Why would I go searching for that when it would just drain my emotional energy?
“It was a work-on for me, getting affected by some of the noise or getting pissed off with what was being said about a decision. You can’t control social media apart from putting your phone away. Kevin has been good around that.”
One new element in this World Cup will be the ‘bunker,’ with foul play decisions set to go for an off-pitch review. There will be two match officials in the bunker at the World Cup and they’ll have eight minutes to decide whether incidents of foul play that meet the yellow-card threshold should be upgraded to red.
While Brace insists he can still see himself giving a red card when it’s clear and obvious, he supports the new system.
“The stonewall red cards should still stand out as red cards. If there’s an act of thuggery or an ‘always illegal’ act, we need to be strong around that.
“But the pros to the bunker is that in complex situations, we don’t have an elongated, five or six replays, talking it through. You never want to rush that situation and now the bunker officials have that time to make the right decision. We move on with the game that everyone wants to see.”
Even though Brace gets to visit some glamorous parts of the world for the biggest games of rugby, the travel is demanding for an international referee.
He was away for 190 days last year alone. He acknowledges that it’s fortunate that Sam works in aviation, meaning she also travels lots with work, but sometimes they’re passing ships in the night. The support from his partner and his family are essential for Brace.
“There’s times where you love it and times where you have a dark week,” says Brace. “You get to travel the world to do this job but there are tough days when a game doesn’t go well or the whole world is talking about your decision. That’s when you need that strong support around you.”
Right now, he’s in one of the happiest, most exciting times of his career. Brace will referee Australia v Fiji, Italy v Namibia, and England v Samoa, as well as being an assistant referee for five more pool games in the World Cup.
Four years on from making it his aim to be one of the refs at this World Cup, Brace is targeting a knock-out game.
“I don’t want to just go and say I was a World Cup referee. Like all the others, my goal is to push myself to do the big games come the knock-outs. We all want to be part of those games.
“My goal is to do a quarter-final, at least. I can just focus on my performance and then it’s out of your control for selection.
“My second goal when I started refereeing was to do the final in 2027 and that still is my goal. The next four years are where I can be better for this experience. Hopefully, we’re having a similar conversation in four years’ time!”
