Match official removed for helping England ahead of Ireland match

Marius van der Westhuizen will not be the assistant referee for Ireland's clash against England.

Just five days before he was set to officiate at England's tournament closer, Marius van der Westhuizen refereed one of their training sessions. Unsurprisingly, his involvement in England's preparations raised a good few eyebrows. As a result, World Rugby have announced that he has been removed from the assistant referee role for Saturday's game at Twickenham. Nigel Owens will be replacing him. The governing body accepted full responsibility for what it branded an "oversight" in a  statement you can read below. https://twitter.com/SportsJOEdotie/status/974060606012747777

"The decision follows Marius’ attendance at an England training session this week. While greater dialogue and collaboration between match officials and teams (including attending team training on request) has been agreed by World Rugby and the teams, Marius should not have been involved given that he was a member of the match official team for the weekend’s match." "World Rugby takes responsibility for this oversight and has taken the proactive decision to stand Marius down to avoid any additional unfair and unnecessary conjecture. Marius is an outstanding talent with a big international future and both he and his employer SARU fully support the decision." "World Rugby has also clarified with teams that, in addition to the regular pre-match coach and referee meetings, senior elite teams will continue to have the opportunity to request that a member of the high-performance match official panel attends training providing that the individual is not a member of the match official team officiating that team at a later date within the current competition or test window."