Wales v New Zealand referee Wayne Barnes: His 100th…

Wales v New Zealand referee Wayne Barnes: His 100th match, the 'f***ing cheat' incident and a fine career

Wayne Barnes is set to referee his 100th Test match when Wales take on New Zealand in Cardiff.

He will equal the record set by Welsh icon Nigel Owens, who racked up a century of Tests when he took control of France v Italy in the 2020 Autumn Nations Cup.

Barnes is set to referee France v South Africa on Saturday, November 12th. This means he will break Owens' record and become the world's most-capped referee.

The Englishman will be using an historic whistle in his record-equalling game. He will kick off things off by blowing the 1905 whistle from Wales' first victory against the All Blacks.

He has refereed Wales more than any other country, and it will be his 29th appearance officiating for them.

He became the world's youngest full time referee when he took charge of his first Test match, Fiji v Samoa, in 2006, and gave out a yellow and red card.

Barnes has also refereed a staggering 266 Premiership matches along with an abundance of huge European fixtures. He refereed his 10th Premiership final in June this year.

Whether it be controversial or light-hearted, Barnes has experienced some time in the limelight. Here are some of his highlight moments.

Crazy first match

The first rugby match that Barnes refereed was unique to say the very least.

It was Bath v Rotherham in 2003 at The Rec ground, and a mass brawl broke out between the players. This could only be broken up by a streaker running onto the pitch in an elephant G-string.

The drama didn't stop there, either. The linesman told him to stop the game through his ear piece, as there was ambulance driving onto the pitch to get to someone that had taken ill in the stands.

Barnes and The Rec would come full circle in 2015, as he would go on to referee his 150th Premiership match there.

Gets called a "f*g cheat" and sends the player off

Affirming the value of respect in the rugby community, Barnes showed a red card to former England skipper Dylan Hartley for calling him a "f*****g cheat".

Hartley was previously given a warning by Barnes, but the Northampton man ignored it, throwing a strong insult at the man in the middle.

Barnes responded with: 'This man has come up to me and called me a f*****g cheat, he leaves the field."

The implications for the red card would be huge for Northampton's Hartley. The 11-week suspension prevented him from going on the 2013 British and Irish Lions tour of Australia, and he wouldn't get picked again.

You can read the full story here.

Clatters into player during match

This one happened last weekend in the Premiership, and the commentators were loving it.

Barnes misjudged his on-field positioning in Saracens v Sale Sharks, and accidentally bashed into Sarries' Ivan van Zyl, who exclaimed "F**k!" into Barnes' mic on impact.

Holding a laugh and looking extremely apologetic, whilst receiving some sarcastic "Off!" chants from the crowd, Barnes said "Sorry!".

Commentator Alastair Eykyn was in stitches as co-commentator and former England star Austin Healy said "That's definitely high, that's elbow into the chin by the looks of it!".

You can read the full story here.

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