Lewis To Take Charge Of London Irish v Toulouse Game
Due to injury, Alain Rolland has had to withdraw as match referee for Saturday’s Heineken Cup semi-final between London Irish and Toulouse at Twickenham.
Rolland’s fellow Irish official Alan Lewis will now referee the match, which will be his third tournament semi-final and his 52nd Heineken Cup match overall.
The Cork-born whistler is the tournament’s most-capped referee and took charge of last year’s final between London Wasps and Leicester Tigers, which was also at Twickenham.
On Saturday Lewis will be backed by an all-Irish officiating team as George Clancy and Peter Fitzgibbon will be the touch judges, Brian Fitzgerald is down for television match official duty and John West has been chosen as the citing commissioner.
Match officials for Heineken Cup and European Challenge Cup matches are nominated by an ERC (European Rugby Cup Ltd.) Selection Panel made up of Colin High (RFU), Joel Dume (FFR) and Bob Yeman (WRU).
The nominated referees are drawn from the Heineken Cup 2007/2008 referees’ panel.
The nominations are submitted to the ERC Match Officials Sub Committee, made up of Referee Managers from the six Unions of the participating teams, who review and confirm the final appointments.
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