Magners drops 'neutral' for refs

Celtic Rugby has made a change to the way it appoints referees, no longer requiring referees to be unattached or neutral.

Referees for Magners League matches have up to now been appointed from a country not involved in the match except in the case where both teams are from the same country. This requirement of 'neutrality' has been dropped.

David Jordan, director of Celtic Rugby, explained: "The change is as much about having equity in terms of the number of appointments that each Celtic Union has after the loss of the Border Reivers team as the strict neutral policy would have meant that the number of Welsh and Irish appointments would have fallen sharply while Scottish appointments remained relatively unchanged.

"The only way to achieve equity was to reduce the strict neutrality clause to allow occasional appointments to be made on a non-neutral basis and Celtic Rugby will allow exchange of referees with other Unions if appropriate.

"All Celtic Rugby officials are now appointed from a discreet panel of suitably experienced referees and all appointments go through an approval process between Celtic Rugby and the Referee Managers from each of our Unions."

There is of course the pious belief that all referees are neutral, which is why some prefer the term unattached.

Other measures introduced this season into the Magners League include the introduction of television match officials and citing commissioners.