World Rugby ditches match official after ‘oversight’ of attending England training

Marius van der Westhuizen has been replaced as an assistant referee for England’s Six Nations finale against Ireland on Saturday with World Rugby accepting it made “an oversight” by allowing the South African to join an England training session this week.

Van der Westhuizen, who has been replaced by Nigel Owens, attended England’s base on Tuesday with Eddie Jones, the head coach, adamant that his side were acting within their rights, having requested a southern hemisphere referee to assist them. World Rugby encourages officials to join training sessions and, while referees are not allowed to take part when it comes to teams they are due to officiate, Van der Westhuizen had been permitted to as an assistant.

England insist they did nothing wrong. “We do it by the book,” Jones said. “I don’t understand what all the hullabaloo is about.”

World Rugby has since moved to avoid any potential conflict of interest or controversy that may have arisen at Twickenham after Ireland’s head coach, Joe Schmidt, admitted his surprise to learn of the timing of Van der Westhuizen’s visit to England training.

“Marius should not have been involved given that he was a member of the match official team for the weekend’s match,” World Rugby said. “World Rugby takes responsibility for this oversight and has taken the proactive decision to stand Marius down to avoid any additional unfair and unnecessary conjecture.

“World Rugby has also clarified with teams that, in addition to the regular pre-match coach and referee meetings, senior elite teams will continue to have the opportunity to request that a member of the high-performance match official panel attends training providing that the individual is not a member of the match official team officiating that team at a later date within the current competition or test window.”