THE MATCH OFFICIALS which will take charge of Ireland’s November internationals against New Zealand, Argentina, Fiji and Australia at the Aviva Stadium have been announced.
Nic Berry of Australia will be the referee for the clash with the All Blacks on Friday, 8 November with England’s Karl Dickson and Andrea Piardi standing in as assistant referees. Brett Cronan will be the TMO while Ben Whitehouse of Wales has been appointed the Foul Play Review Officer [FPRO].
New Zealand referee Paul Williams will be the man in the middle for the Argentina game on 15 November and will be assisted by Craig Evans and Angus Mabey. The TMO will be Richard Kelly and Andrew Jackson has been selected as the FPRO.
The Fiji match will be refereed by Scotland’s Hollie Davidson on 23 November and the assistant referees will be Matthew Carley and Sam Grove-White. Mike Adamson is the TMO and Andrew McMenemy has been tasked with the role of FPRO.
Ireland will round off their November Internationals campaign against Australia on Saturday, 30 November where Andrea Piardi will be the referee. The assistant referees are Nika Amashukeli and Pierre Brousset. The TMO will be Eric Gauzins while the FPRO will be Ian Tempest.
Poor Hollie Davidson. Gets a big game but immediately gets undermined by that blight on the game Carley and Adamson as TMO.
Will need to hope Nic Berry stands his ground against NZ as Dickson and Piardi as AR’s will look for any chance to insert themselves into the game to penalise Ireland
@teuO6nLS: i don’t know what a “foul play review officer” does but having Ben whitehouse in any ref setup on the whistle or behind a screen , I’d be worried. It sounds important
@Stuart: it’s the “bunker” referee
@teuO6nLS: Ireland v Fiji is not really a big game though.
From what I’ve seen of her recently, I think she is one of the better NH referees – I’d like to see her getting games in the 6 nations ahead of the likes of Carley or Dickson
@Lesidees: so would I. But the old boys club doesn’t like to upset the cartel of awful English referees
@teuO6nLS: We are a gas bunch… and I don’t mean Irish fans, I mean rugby fans im general. We are never happy with referees, particularly English referees because we always feel that they unfairly malign “our” team. In reality, the English referees are the best in the business. They regularly get the big jobs and then we more regularly end up on the receiving end of a decision we don’t agree with. Wayne Barnes was hated in equal measure by Irish, SA and NZ fans and yet all 3 teams had a +80% win rate when he refereed. Go figure!
@Paul Ennis: I’m pretty sure Ireland’s win rate when Barnes was referee dipped below 50%
@Brian O’Connor: You will have to do a bit better than pretty sure. Irelands win rate since 2013 is in excess of 75% (Joe Schmidt 72%, Andy Farrell 80%) so I would very much doubt it!
Saturday 20th November?
Best ref at the moment is the welsh guy and i think the guy from russia
English referees the bane.of Irish and French teams.mind you France kinda look for it at times when you think of the amount of.game they lost because of over exuberance