Welsh referee Nigel Owens has spoken of his delight at having played a small part in one of the greatest Rugby World Cup finals last Saturday as New Zealand saw off Australia in a thrilling encounter at Twickenham.
A series of superb performances led many to the view that Owens was the only candidate worthy of handling the demands of the jewel in the crown of world rugby, not that the 44-year-old necessarily shared that confidence.
“I’d refereed three games in the pool stages and they’d gone well, the feedback was good,” Owens told RTÉ 2fm’s Game On.
“Then I’d a quarter-final - France and New Zealand - and that had gone well.
“Everybody pretty much knew if you were going to be refereeing a semi-final, you probably weren’t going to be doing the final
“Although it wasn’t officially said to us, that was the general consensus.”
And the honour of referring a World Cup final is one he is only now starting to appreciate.
“It was a great experience,”
“It was nice that the final ended on a high.
“A referee can never make a bad game great, but a referee can spoil a good game if he’s too whistling- happy"
“So many finals domestically, Pro12, European Cup and even World Cup finals, so many of them disappoint over the years because of the pressures of the final.
“You didn’t want this one to be like that because it had been such a great tournament. It would have been a shame for it to end with a final that was disappointing.
“All credit to both teams, they went out there to play rugby like rugby is supposed to be played, and it was one of the great finals that people can look back on in years to come.”
Lauded by rugby lovers for his laissez-faire approach to the game, Owens explained his philosophy by saying: “A referee can never make a bad game great, but a referee can spoil a good game if he’s too whistling- happy.
“But you need the two teams and the players to make the game, and all credit must go to them.
“The most difficult thing about refereeing professional rugby is your concentration - your focus has to be 100% for the game. That’s the most difficult challenge - you can’t switch off for a split second at all.
“By concentrating so much on the game, what goes on around you sometimes you’re oblivious to.
“It’s only when you sit back and look at the game again that you realise what you’ve been part of.”
Of his individual performance in the final, Owens admitted to being content, while acknowledging that the quest for the perfect display in such a complex game will always remain elusive.
“When everybody is talking about what a great game it was and about some of the great players on show and nobody’s talking about you as a referee, then your job is done,” he added.
“That’s all you can hope for as a referee and that’s all you should hope for as a referee.
“It’s humanly impossible to referee a Test match without making mistake.
“All you can hope for as a referee is that the mistakes you do make don’t matter in the outcome of the game.”
