SANZAR announces match officials for Super Rugby 2012 - Rugby News
Sanzar, the governing body of Super Rugby, has announced the match officials for the forthcoming championship kicking off in 2012. Sanzar has included five new faces in the panel to officiate the event. Sanzar referee boss, Lyndon Bray, unveiled the crew
of whistleblowers on November 11 and said that all the referees have been selected on merits to conduct the tournament in an improved manner. He also said that the reserve panel will also help the refs to raise the standard of umpiring.
According to the details, four New Zealanders, five South African and one Australian man has been included in the merit panel. On the other hand three officials each from New Zealand and Australia and one from South Africa, has been featured in the list
of reserve panel. However, Sanzar has not dedicated the particular matches to the referees, which are expected to be announced in coming few days.
Talking about the Super Rugby 2012 referees panel, Lyndon Bray, said that, “We plan to give our merit panel referees around 80 per cent of the games in Super Rugby next year with the reserve panel picking up the balance. Our aim is for the best referees
to be refereeing the most rugby. The reserve panel will operate in a similar way to a rugby team's reserve bench.”
He added that, “Knowing that we are likely to lose some more referees from our team next year, it was important to balance the new guys selected for 2012 with some maturity and experience.”
Super Rugby 2012 will get underway from February 24, as two New Zealander derbies will be testing their abilities at Eden Park, Auckland. There were a few complaints about the match referees during the last championship including the final of Super Rugby,
played between Queensland Reds and Crusaders.
Merit Panel: Keith Brown (NZ), Marius Jonker (SA), Craig Joubert (SA), Jonathan Kaplan (SA), Bryce Lawrence (NZ), Mark Lawrence (SA), Jaco Peyper (SA), Chris Pollock (NZ), Steve Walsh (AUS) and Garratt Williamson (NZ).
Reserve Panel: Stuart Berry (SA), Mike Fraser (NZ), Angus Gardner (AUS), Glen Jackson (NZ), Andrew Lees, (AUS) Ian Smith (AUS), Lourens van der Merwe (SA) and Jonathon White (NZ).
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