| Birth name | Greg Garner | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | 26 June 1980 | |||||||
| Place of birth | Coventry, England | |||||||
| Rugby union career | ||||||||
| ||||||||
Greg Garner (born 26 June 1980) is an international rugby union referee who represents the Rugby Football Union. [1]
Rugby union, commonly known in most of the world simply as rugby, is a contact team sport which originated in England in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its most common form, a game is between two teams of 15 players using an oval-shaped ball on a rectangular field with H-shaped goalposts at each end.
The Rugby Football Union (RFU) is the governing body for rugby union in England. It was founded in 1871, and was the sport's international governing body prior to the formation of what is now known as World Rugby (WR) in 1886. It promotes and runs the sport, organises international matches for the England national team, and educates and trains players and officials.
He began officiating in 2000 at local rugby clubs in Coventry before joining the elite referee development at the RFU in 2008, and was part of the touch judge team in the 2008–09 English Premiership. In 2010, Garner was part of the IRB referee panel for the 2011 IRB Junior World Championship in Italy - refereeing 4 fixtures, before refereeing the final of the 2012 IRB Junior World Championship between hosts South Africa and New Zealand. [2]
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England.
The 2011 IRB Junior World Championship was the fourth annual international rugby union competition for Under 20 national teams, this competition replaced the now defunct under 19 and under 21 world championships. The event was organised by rugby's governing body, the International Rugby Board (IRB). The winners were New Zealand, who won all the competitions held since the inaugural year in 2008.
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and the enclaved microstates San Marino and Vatican City. Italy covers an area of 301,340 km2 (116,350 sq mi) and has a largely temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. With around 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth-most populous EU member state and the most populous country in Southern Europe.
He made his first appearance at Test match level during the 2012 end-of-year rugby union tests, where he officiated the Italy vs. Tonga match.
A test match in rugby union is an international match, usually played between two senior national teams, that is recognised as such by at least one of the teams' national governing bodies.
The Italy national rugby union team competes annually in the Six Nations Championship against the other top rugby teams in Europe. The team is also known as the Azzurri (Azures).
The Tonga national rugby union team is nicknamed ʻIkale Tahi . Like their Polynesian neighbours, the Tongans start their matches with a war dance – the Sipi Tau. They are members of the Pacific Islands Rugby Alliance (PIRA) along with Fiji and Samoa. The Ikale Tahi achieved a historic 19–14 victory over France in the 2011 Rugby World Cup, but having lost to New Zealand and Canada, were unable to achieve what would have been their first ever presence at the quarter-finals.
