ANDREW BRACE WILL be the man in the middle when Leinster and Ulster lock horns for a place in the URC semi-finals at the Aviva Stadium next Saturday.
It will be IRFU referee Brace’s 95th league game in charge, and the 35-year-old will be assisted by Craig Evans (WRU), Eoghan Cross (IRFU) and TMO Brian MacNeice (IRFU).
The Cardiff-born Brace, who played international rugby for Belgium, recently took charge of Toulouse’s Champions Cup semi-final victory over Harlequins as well as Munster’s 47-12 victory over Connacht in the URC.
Munster’s own quarter-final against the Ospreys at Thomond Park on Friday night will be refereed by Hollie Davidson (SRU) who will be taking charge of her 14th URC game.
Italians Andrea Piardi and Gianluca Gnecchi will provide assistance, while Davidson’s fellow Scot Andrew McMenemy will be on TMO duty.
Munster-Ospreys will be broadcast live on RTÉ Two and Premier Sports, while TG4 will show Leinster-Ulster, as will Premier Sports.
That is a huge shame. I think anyone with an interest in Irish boxing would have thought he was one of our hopes for an Olympic medal.
Unfortunately if there is a hint of corruption it’s nothing new in boxing. It can have predetermined outcomes as bad as wwe sometimes.
Agreed, he demolished Kenny Egan a few months ago and we had high hopes for him, he still very young though and the lad will come good .
There was always a danger of this.
We saw what happened in Beijing with K Egan against the Chinese opponent. If the UEFA boys are taking backhanders the boxing boys are certainly taking them. Fighting a Turkish fighter in Turkey was always going to be a massive ask as a result. It’s a real pity but he’s young enough to come back for the next Olympics.
Boxing is becoming a farce though with the blatant fixing of fights.
Corruption is so widespread in Turkish sport it even has it’s own Wikipedia entry http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Turkish_sports_corruption_scandal#section_1 And there are few “sports” as corrupt as boxing, there have been numerous examples in the past year alone. So whoever thought it a good idea to hold a boxing tournament in Turkey must’ve been a little on the slow side.
Im betting the judges were Turks as well knowing the ebu
The referee was from Kazakhstan, and the ringside judges from the Philippines, China, Italy, Algeria and Croatia.
Gutted…! Chin up Ward, long career ahead of you yet!
He’s used to hearing chin down :)
Boxing scoring is becoming like Eurovision voting.
And I made a spelling mistake great :O Your’s* don’t I look silly :L
Katie Taylor has one final chance to qualify for the Olympics but its in china probably against a Chinese girl so don’t rule out two of our best medal chances not even being at the games.
Cheers Niall :) and the mighty Joe will be back he’ll put every man he meets on the canvas from now on! That’ll leave no doubt about it!
Off the boxing topic, but it is incredibly annoying when you put some quotes in blue boxes and others not. Make up your mind! Plus if you use quotation marks they go at the beginning and end of a quote. You’re sincerely a stressed out leaving cert English student who struggles to correct all his own grammar etc. as well as the Journal’s! :) rant over.
Thanks Rob, nice to get some feedback on the quote boxes. Didn’t realise they were so off-putting.
As for the quotation marks — if the quote in question continues on over a few paragraphs, it’s accepted style not to use the close marks at the end of every paragraph, just at the end of the entire quote. Although I wouldn’t start doing that for the Leaving Cert, it’ll probably just stress you out even more!
Good luck with the exams.
Yeah@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Get a life
Any word on how the protest went?
Gutted for Ward, such a talent.