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England’s Wayne Barnes and Jérôme Garcès of France have been appointed as referees for the World Cup semi-finals. Barnes comes as no surprise having been in impressive form throughout the tournament. He will oversee the second match between Argentina and Australia on Sunday October 25.
Saturday’s meeting between New Zealand and South Africa goes to Garcès, another strong candidate though somewhat of a surprise choice ahead of Nigel Owens, the popular Welshman who now looks likely to handle the 3rd place match.
Fellow Frenchman Romain Poite will act as assistant for Garcès, as will Ireland’s John Lacey. George Ayoub of Australia will be the extra set of eyes on the television replay. Running the line for Barnes will be South African Jaco Peyper and another Irishman, George Clancy. New Zealander Ben Skeen has been appointed television match official.
Unsurprisingly there is no place for under-fire Craig Joubert. World Rugby took the unusual step of publicly admonishing his controversial late penalty decision at Twickenham on Sunday. Joubert was the man in the middle of the 2011 final in Auckland, but his 2015 tournament appears to have ended two weeks early.
