South Africa is a great country to visit. I used to love going there to referee. You have got so many things to do, so much to see, there are all these different cultures.
But it’s also a very difficult place to go and referee because they are so passionate about their rugby and when they lose they are not happy at all! Whoever is in the firing line gets it, whether it be the referee, the opposition coach, the opposition team, their own team. So expect it to be full on during the upcoming series between the Springboks and Wales.
Dave McHugh, the former Irish referee, was my coach for the last three or four years of my career. He was out there refereeing South Africa v New Zealand in 2002 when a big Springbok fan got so agitated with his decisions he ran on the pitch and tackled him.
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I always used to tell McHugh that wasn’t a case of the s*** hitting the fan, but the fan hitting the s***! We always laugh at that. But, in all seriousness, that was totally unacceptable. That fan was dealt with and banned from the stadiums and quite rightly so.
When you are over there, you really knew you are in a rugby mad country. They are very passionate about the game, very similar to us here really. This series against Wales will be their first chance to get the fans out and fill the stadiums since Covid, with the restrictions on crowd numbers being lifted. The supporters, for their part, will be desperate to get back into the grounds.
The stadiums in South Africa always generate a good atmosphere because the fans are so passionate. When you are in some of the grounds in New Zealand and Australia, because they are shared with cricket, the atmosphere is not as intense. Some parts of the stadium you are far away from the pitch. You don’t feel the intensity so much.
But it’s different in South Africa where the crowd are right on top of you. I particularly remember refereeing at Ellis Park in 2012, for that epic match between the Springboks and the All Blacks when the atmosphere was absolutely electric that day.
Loftus Versfeld, the venue for the first Test next weekend, is very intimidating, while Bloemfontein, where they will play the following Saturday, has a bit of an edge about the crowd there too. All the stadium over there are like that. No matter what ground you are at, you will feel that intimidation. When they are full, you are playing against the country then. It’s unbelievable. They really are passionate about their rugby, so it’s very, very intimidating and that will be even more the case on this tour with full houses for the first time in more than two years.
It’s a tough place to go at the best of times, but the ‘Boks are really going to be wanting to put on a pretty dominant display in front of their fans. A 2-1 victory will not be good enough for them. They will want to do a whitewash.
South Africa as a rugby nation will be gunning for it. The stadiums will be passionate and the Springboks will want that physical encounter against us which is the way they like to play the game. That’s the mentality they have, a mentality of winning rugby which can be physical and brutal at times, which suits their style of play and the players they have got.
When you go out to South Africa, you have to be at your best. It’s going to be really tough for us.
The referee for the first Test in Pretoria is Nika Amashukeli from Georgia. He is only 27 which is very young for an international ref and he hasn’t done that many Test matches.
What you are seeing now is there are some inexperienced referees with some big testing games during this summer window. There is a reason for that. They need to know who are going to be the 12 referees going to the World Cup in France next year. So there’s a chance here for some referees to put their name forward.
Nika was in charge for Ireland-Italy in Dublin during the Six Nations earlier this year when he became the first official from outside the Tier One countries to referee a match in the Championship. He did a decent job and did what he needed to do, including dealing with that complicated incident when Italy had to go down to 13 men after a red card meant the need for uncontested scrums.
But this is going to be a different level for him now. This is a tester. It’s going to be full on. This, I would say, is the biggest game of his career so far. He will have to stay strong refereeing out there in front of a very full passionate stadium of South African supporters because they really will be on your back if things don’t go their way. This is going to be a big game for him, so it will be very interesting to see how he goes and I wish him the very best.
If Wales are to have any success they are going to have to front up and match South Africa in terms of physicality in order to get some equity and some ball to play some rugby. They are going to have to get parity in the physical aspects of it.
If Wales can come back with one win, it will be something positive, especially after the last Six Nations. If they could win the series it really would be the kick start to get things going for the World Cup. It’s going to be one hell of a tough ask, that’s for sure, but I do fancy we can sneak at least a Test out there.
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