Referee Clancy's first Test
Down Montevideo way
George Clancy of Ireland is in Ururguay where he will referee his first Test and it is a World Cup qualifier between Uruguay and the USA, the first leg of a qualifier which will decide which of the two will head straight for France in 2007.
He is a young referee who has made remarkably rapid strides and been given the sort of controlled experience which will enable to enter this big one with confidence. Imagine having a World Cup place dependent on a decision. Just as well there is more help for referees then there was in the days of one man and his whistle.
George John Clancy, a Munsterman, was born on 12 January 1977. He was educated at St Munchin's College, a diocesan school in Limerick, the same school the famous referee Dave McHugh attended, and then at the University of Limerick where he received the degree Master of International Studies. Now he is a civil servant and married just a year ago to Evelyn.
At school he first played that wild Irish game called hurling and then got into rugby St Munchin's, which is not surprising as the school has a great rugby tradition and numbers amongst its Old Boys Bill Mulcahy, Colm Tucker, Philip Danaher, Anthony Foley, Keith Wood, Marcus Horan, Jerry Flannery and Jeremy Staunton. After school Clancy played for the Bruff club.
If the school fired the rugby interest it was Clancy's father who fired his interest in refereeing. He says: "I started refereeing in the 1999/2000 season after joining the Munster Association of Referees in Limerick. My father (a former referee) had really encouraged me to start and has remained my No.1 backer since then."
It's not long from 1999 to 2006, which means his progress has been rapid. In 2003 he refereed his first All-Ireland League Division 3 match and 15 months later his first Heineken Cup match, Bourgoin against Bath - and that is not for sissies.
He had help. "John Cole, amongst others helped to start me off and once I progressed to the national panel of referees Owen Doyle has been a huge influence."
Experience is not necessarily just the passing of time, for Clancy has gained a lot of experience in a short time. He has refereed four Heineken Cup matches and the quarter-final of the Challenge Cup between Northampton Saints and Worcester Warriors in 2005. In 2005 he was one of the IRBN appointments to referee at the Under-19 World Championship in Durban and in 2006 he was at the Under-21 World Championship in France. Just under a year ago he had his first taste of a senior Test when he was a touch judge at Murrafield when the All Blacks beat Scotland in the last match of their Grand Slam tour and Tana Umaga played his last Test.
His role models in refereeing are the Irish panel referees - Donal Courtney, Alan Lewis and Alain Rolland. He has taken a step closer to joining them.
On Tuesday he flew from Dublin south across the Atlantic. It was not long before he was sampling the great steaks of South America. That is gold the Spaniards conquistadors should have dreamt about.