AN all Irish panel of match officials will take charge of Friday night’s Guinness PRO14 play-off semi-final clash between Glasgow Warriors and Ulster.
John Lacey will referee the game, while Andrew Brace and George Clancy will be assistant referees, with Olly Hodges as the Television Match Official.
While it is far from unprecedented in the PRO14 to have match officials for a match from the same country as one of the competing teams, the decision to appoint four Irishmen for this match while using four Welshmen (referee: Ben Whitehouse; assistant referees: Nigel Owens and Dan Jones; and TMO: Ian Davies) for the European Champions Cup play-off encounter between Ospreys and the Scarlets the following day seems to have created an unnecessary source of potential tension if the game .
Meanwhile, Scotsman Mike Adamson will be the man in the middle of the other PRO14 play-off semi-final between with Lloyd Linton and Keith Allen assisting, and Neil Paterson as the TMO on Saturday afternoon.
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At least the Welsh officials are handling two Welsh sides.
We’ve got four Irish officials handling a Scottish/Irish clash!
It TOTALLY STINKS!!!
I assume none of the Irish officials is from Ulster, so must assume that if they are from different Provinces it should have no greater impact than if they were from any other Pro14 “region”.
Or I being naive?
I assume, but have not checked, that the Irish officials either come from, or are associated with, the 3 other Irish Provinces.
If I am correct, there should be no problem as they should display complete neutrality as their bias, if any, would relate to these provinces.
Am I being naive?
Not familiar enough with the Welsh setup to comment