Former Munster flanker and Ireland international David Wallace used his weekly column for the Independent to raise a question that we ourselves, and we're sure the vast majority of the rugby-watching public, have been asking regarding the best referee in the sport, Nigel Owens.
Last weekend Ireland were on the wrong end of some shocking decisions from Jaco Peyper while the unanimously respected Welshman ran the line, but the question isn't why wasn't Owens in charge of the match, but rather...
Why is Nigel Owens only refereeing one game in the 2016 Six Nations?
Wallace posed the question, so we went in search of an answer.
Ireland definitely have a right to feel aggrieved over the refereeing. Jaco Peyper just wasn't up to the standard on the day, and there were numerous instances that he got things wrong, not just one or two.
It makes you wonder why one of the best referees in the world - Nigel Owens - is only refereeing one of the 15 games of the Six Nations.
Nigel will officiate England vs France on the final day of the championship as his only involvement as the man in the middle for the 2016 championship, so surely there must be a good reason why a tried and tested referee is being asked to take a back seat, right?
Apparently not.
According to Wales Online, Owens is only in charge of one game because the IRB want to blood inexperienced referees in for the next world cup.
But Owens’ relatively fleeting involvement is not performance related.
Instead, it is part of an attempt by governing body World Rugby to give more exposure to those referees who are considered one notch below the very highest echelon in the unofficial rankings.
That is absolutely infuriating.
We had a look around to see if anybody was talking about this, and sure enough the BBC's Sonja McLaughlan asked the same question ahead of last week's matches, to which she received the same reply:
15 test matches & Nigel Owens only gets single game. Why not use the best man more? #SixNations
— Sonja McLaughlan (@Sonjamclaughlan) February 11, 2016
@Sonjamclaughlan the world rugby ref panel talked about this yesterday - supposed to be encouraging 2nd tier refs building towards rwc2019
— Dave Price (@drp297) February 11, 2016
While it's clear that these refs do indeed need more experience, taking easily the best ref available and giving him one single match in the tournament seems like a ridiculous decision.
We want Nigel.
