Nigel Owens explains 'illegal trends' URC want to stamp out

Retired Welsh referee Nigel Owens has revealed why he recently accepted an invite from URC referees boss Tappe Henning to become part of the four-strong independent referee selection panel that also features Ireland’s George Clancy, South Africa’s Stuart Berry and Scotland’s Neil Paterson.

After Owens’ refereeing contract with the WRU expired in June, he became a referee coach for the union, something he had dabbled in for the past year or so anyway in coaching the likes of Craig Evans, Ben Whitehouse and Ben Breakspear and overseeing the refereeing academy.

However, he has since agreed to directly assist the URC, the five-country tournament that is looking to improve its level of refereeing consistency following regular criticism in recent seasons.

As an independent assessor, Owens now watches a referee on the weekend, making notes on their performance to build a playlist. This is then reviewed with the referee over a Zoom call before there is a general Wednesday meeting of the key officials who meet up for a few hours to discuss the performance of every URC referee.

It’s a routine that Owens has quickly warmed to and even though the URC is only into its fourth round of matches this weekend, the retired Test-level centurion referee has revealed that fresh trends of illegalities by players in matches have been spotted and steps are being taken to clamp down on them.

Writing in his latest walesonline.co.uk column, Owens began by explaining why he took up Henning’s offer to get back directly involved in the URC. “I want to help the referees in a tournament that I enjoyed being part of for many, many years…. I want to put something back into the URC. It’s a great tournament that I’m very passionate about.”

Elaborating on his hands-on involvement, Owens added: “For example, I watched AJ Jacobs in the Munster-Zebre game on the weekend. In terms of making a playlist, I’ll note down a time and pick up on a decision – whether that is perhaps asking whether it should have been given or praising him for doing so – and then go through the accuracy of the penalties.

“Once you have gone through them, I will then meet up with him and his coach over Zoom and go through any questions I have, discuss what they have done well and look over any things to work on, or decisions that they may have got wrong. After that, we will have a discussion and come to an agreement about his overall performance.”

As for the weekly Wednesday catch-up with Henning and the other assessors, Owens continued: “What we will do as part of that group is give a clear message on trends. One of the big trends in the early rounds has been players not competing at lineouts legally, but jumping straight across. Blocking in the lineout and setting up mauls illegally is another.

“As a group, we will send that message around the officials that we need to be better on that. Hopefully, that will bring more consistency on that matter across the group of referees.”