Referee Clancy lands Six Nations debut at Stade de France

IRELAND’S George Clancy will make his Six Nations refereeing debut this season when he takes charge of the France-Scotland clash at the Stade de France on February 14.

Clancy, who was promoted to the International Rugby Board (IRB) high performance panel in November, becomes the third Irish referee to hit the top rankings.

Alain Rolland, now regarded as the top referee in the world, will take charge of two Six Nations games, as will South Africans Mark Lawrence and Jonathan Kaplan and Welsh official Nigel Owens.

Ireland’s other top official Alan Lewis; Craig Joubert (South Africa); Chris White (England) and Stuart Dickinson (Australia) will have one game each.

France’s Joel Jutge and New Zealand’s Steve Walsh have been provisionally appointed to matches on the final championship weekend.

The pair missed out on the November Tests through injury and will be assessed before they are confirmed for their fixtures.

Appointments were made after a comprehensive review of refereeing performances by the IRB Match Official Selection Committee, chaired by David Pickering.

For the first time the process included self assessment, with referees giving structured feedback on their individual performances.

6 Nations 2009 Appointments. Feb 7: England v Italy, M Lawrence (SARU); Ireland v France, Dublin N Owens (WRU); Feb 8: Scotland v Wales, A Rolland (IRFU); Feb 14: France v Scotland, G Clancy (IRFU); Feb 14: Wales v England, J Kaplan (SARU); Feb 15: Italy v Ireland, C White (RFU); Feb 27: France v Wales, M Lawrence (SARU); Feb 28: Scotland v Italy, N Owens (WRU); Feb 28: Ireland v England, C Joubert (SARU); Mar 14: Italy v Wales, A Lewis (IRFU); Scotland v Ireland, J Kaplan (SARU); Mar 15: England v France, S Dickinson (ARU); Mar 21: Italy v France, A Rolland (IRFU); England v Scotland, J Jutge (TBC) (FFR); Wales v Ireland, S Walsh (TBC) (NZRU).