Referee Nigel Owens sin bins England's Marland Yarde (L) during the first rugby union test match against New Zealand's All Blacks at Eden Park in Auckland June 7, 2014. REUTERS/Nigel Marple (NEW ZEALAND - Tags: SPORT RUGBY) - RTR3SMPH
© Reuters

The rugby referee enjoys a level of respect denied to his football game counterpart. He is spared flash-mobbing by angry players and often addressed every bit "Sir".

All the same the role nevertheless brings closer scrutiny than it once did. This is partly because microphones make the comments of referees audible on boob tube broadcasts and bring their personalities to the fore.

And none more than that of Nigel Owens, who will be going into his third Earth Cup as the tournament'due south senior arbiter, with 63 internationals and numerous other large games on his record.

Owens, 44, is a vivid on-field and on-air presence, distinctive both for his West Walian accent and a souvenir of repartee with players. This reflects the humour and quick wit associated with his other identities as a bilingual stand-up comedian and Goggle box presenter.

"A quick improvement to a player who is moaning about something tin often defuse tension," he says.

"Simply it has to arise naturally from the situation. You mustn't go out in that location thinking of funny things to say, or say anything which disrespects the histrion or the game."

I event, he argues, is information technology can no longer be argued that the all-time referee is the one who is noticed least. "That might have been the case in the past, but now that nosotros are miked-upwardly, with the idea of explaining decisions and making the game more than attainable, people volition hear and recognise y'all."

That visibility, and audibility, adds to the challenges of a game which is in any example getting harder to referee. "At top level information technology is faster than it has e'er been," he notes. "The ball stays in play longer and you have to make split-second judgments on incidents which will and then be replayed endlessly from the angles provided by 26 cameras and examined mercilessly on social media."

There are farther potential problems in contentious phases of an inherently complex game. Owens points in particular to the and then-called contact area — with players battling for possession in loose play — and the perennial perplexities of the scrum. "If you can go those correct you are on your way to having a decent game," he says.

Add being the target of homophobic corruption, as Owens — who came out in 2007 — was at Twickenham last twelvemonth and yous would think he had every alibi for losing the enthusiasm for rugby axiomatic over those telly microphones.

While disappointed by the Twickenham incident, he was greatly encouraged by the reaction to it. "It would exist unfair to single Twickenham out," he says. "It might happen at any stadium, and there should be huge credit to the people who spoke out about it and the RFU for taking activeness.

"They're the people who made a difference, past not standing past and letting it happen." The Rugby Football Wedlock slapped a ban of ii years from Twickenham on two fans plus a £thousand payment each to a charity of Owens' choice.

His passion for the game is obviously undimmed. He talks of the possibility of refereeing at a 4th Globe Cup in Nippon in 2019. On weekends when he is not on duty at a big game, he is likely to be institute contributing to rugby's future by taking charge of under-12 matches in West Wales.

A third Earth Cup finds him merely as excited as he was before his first, in France in 2007. "At that place is always that sense of excitement. And this fourth dimension there is the added element of it being at home in England and Wales and a feeling that, more than than any other tournament since the first in 1987, there are a number of teams who have real hopes of winning it."

The pool stages will find him in charge of iii matches — a clash of ferociously physical cultures in Tonga v Georgia and two potential puddle deciders, South Africa 5 Scotland and Ireland v French republic.

"I'll prepare in the same fashion every bit I would for whatsoever other match," he says, at the same time acknowledging that Earth Cup matches do bring their own challenges.

"You are aware that decisions you make might lead a team being eliminated. If they're the right decisions, that'south fine and equally information technology should exist. Just information technology does place extra pressure on y'all."

Referees, like players, have ambitions. Given his record and standing, Owens probably has a improve adventure than whatever other British participant — thespian or referee — of playing an active part, rather than spectating, when the terminal takes place at Twickenham on Oct 31.

"As a referee yous want to be at the World Cup, he says. "And if you get at that place yous want to referee the concluding. Information technology'southward no different to being a role player."

Such an achievement would be the culmination (although far from the finale) of a distinguished refereeing career. But cherished as the appetite is, there is i affair for which he would readily cede it. Nobody nowadays referees their own country in any rugby international, least of all a Earth Cup final.

A Welsh squad success would hateful frustrated ambition for him, merely he has no doubt about his priorities. "Nobody would exist more delighted than me if Wales got to the concluding," he says.

"I'd like to think that everyone who plays for Wales thinks of the squad before himself and as a referee information technology is the same — individual aspirations come second."

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