Irish Referees Selected For Summer Internationals

Irish referees Donal Courtney, Alan Lewis, Alain Rolland and Simon McDowell have all been named in the list of match officials for the upcoming
Summer international matches between May and August 2004.

Courtney, Lewis and Rolland have been named on the A panel of
referees with
Simon McDowell being named on the C panel. The C panel is made up of
promising young referees who will be given the opportunity to
officiate as
touch judges and television match officials (TMO’s) at full
international
matches.

McDowell has been selected as a touch judge for the Barbarians
fixtures
against Wales (May 26th) and England (May 30th) and the South Africa
V Wales
international (June 26th).

Donal Courtney has been chosen to referee the Argentina V Wales game
in
Tucuman (June 12th) with Alan Lewis to assist him as one of his touch
judges. The pair will then swap roles for the return game a week
later in
Buenos Aires (June 19th).

Alain Rolland will take charge of the opening game of the 2004 Tri
Nations
in Wellington when New Zealand take on World Cup finalists Australia
(July
17th) and is also named as a touch judge for the New Zealand V South
Africa
game in Christchurch (July 24th).

*N.B. The match officials for Ireland’s two match test series against
South
Africa are as follows:
First Test (Bloemfontein, June 12th):
Referee – Tony Spreadbury (England)
Touch Judges – Joel Jutge (France), Giulio De Santis (Italy)

Second Test (Cape Town, June 19th):
Referee – Joel Jutge (France)
Touch Judges – Tony Spreadbury (England), Nigel Owens (Wales).