| Birth name | Paul Gerard Honiss | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | 18 June 1963 | ||||||||||
| School | St John's College | ||||||||||
| Rugby union career | |||||||||||
| |||||||||||
Paul Gerard Honiss (born 18 June 1963) is a retired rugby union referee from Hamilton, New Zealand.
Honiss held the record of the most test matches refereed (46) when he retired as an international rugby union referee in July 2008. [1] That record has since been surpassed by Jonathan Kaplan. [2] He first started refereeing in 1984, making his international referee debut in a 1997 Rugby World Cup qualifier between Tahiti and the Cook Islands.
Honiss was subsequently selected to officiate at the 1999 Rugby World Cup in Wales, and the 2003 Rugby World Cup in Australia. He was also selected as a referee for the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France.
During the 2007 World Cup Honiss equaled Welshman Derek Bevan's record for most Tests as a referee when he took charge of his 44th Test, a Pool D match between Argentina and Ireland on 30 September. He surpassed Bevan when he presided over the third-place match between Argentina and France on 19 October. [3]
His final match in charge was between Australia and France, at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Australia, with the home team winning 40–10. [4]
A hockey and tennis court in Saint John's College of Hamilton, New Zealand is named after his father Paul Honiss, an old boy of the school's predecessor Marist Brothers High School.
 | This biographical article relating to New Zealand rugby union, about a person born in the 1960s, is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Rugby union, widely known simply as rugby, is a full-contact team sport that 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 played between two teams of 15 players each, using an oval-shaped ball on a rectangular field called a pitch. The field has H-shaped goalposts at both ends.
The Australia national rugby union team, nicknamed the Wallabies, is the representative national team in the sport of rugby union for the nation of Australia. The team first played at Sydney in 1899, winning their first test match against the touring British Isles team.
The England national rugby union team represents England in men's international rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. England have won the championship on 29 occasions – winning the Grand Slam 13 times and the Triple Crown 26 times – making them the most successful outright winners in the tournament's history. As of 15 October 2020, England are ranked second in the world by the International Rugby Board. They are currently the only team from the Northern Hemisphere to win the Rugby World Cup, having won the tournament in 2003, and have been runners-up on three other occasions.
Richard Hugh McCaw is a retired New Zealand professional rugby union player. He captained the national team, the All Blacks, in 110 out of his 148 test matches, and won two Rugby World Cups. He has won the World Rugby player of the year award a joint record three times and was the most capped test rugby player of all time from August 2015 to October 2020.
Steve Walsh is a retired professional rugby union referee from New Zealand. He officiated at international level from 1998 to 2014, and at three Rugby World Cups, including refereeing the semi-final between South Africa and Argentina in 2007. Walsh became the most experienced Super Rugby referee in 2014, passing Jonathan Kaplan's record before retiring from the game in 2015.
The World Rugby Awards are given out annually by World Rugby, the worldwide governing body for rugby union, for major achievement in the sport. They were first awarded in 2001. The International Rugby Players' Association also gives out two awards, for Try of the Year and Special Merit, as a part of the programme.
Jonathan Isaac Kaplan, is a former international rugby union referee who used to hold the record for the most international matches as referee.
Stuart Dickinson is an Australian former Rugby union referee. Dickinson has refereed in many rugby competitions, including the Rugby World Cup, Tri Nations, Six Nations, international friendlies, Super 12/14/15, and Shute Shield. He was a referee at the 1999 Rugby World Cup, the 2003 Rugby World Cup, and the 2007 Rugby World Cup. He is Australia's most-capped referee, and the only Australian referee to appear at three Rugby World Cups.
Nigel Owens, is a Welsh international rugby union referee. He is the current world record holder for most test matches refereed and one of five professional referees at the Welsh Rugby Union, alongside Ben Whitehouse, Craig Evans, Adam Jones and Dan Jones.
The knockout stage of the 2007 Rugby World Cup began on 6 October with a quarter-final between Australia and England and concluded on 20 October with the final, at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, Paris, between England and South Africa, their second meeting in this tournament.
Patric Denis O'Brien, commonly known as Paddy O'Brien, is a New Zealand international rugby union referee, and former head of the International Rugby Board's Referee Board.
Wayne Barnes is an English international rugby union referee and barrister. He is a regular referee in the English Premiership, and has refereed games in the Heineken Cup and the European Challenge Cup. At international level, Barnes has refereed matches at the Rugby World Cup, the Six Nations, the Rugby Championship and the Pacific Nations Cup competitions.
Christophe Berdos is a full-time international rugby union referee with the French Rugby Federation and is one of the two French representatives on the IRB's International Referees Panel.
The 2008 end of year rugby tests, also known as the Autumn internationals saw Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, the Pacific Islanders and Canada tour the northern hemisphere. The tour ended with the traditional 'final challenge' Barbarians match, against Australia, which was the first rugby union Test at the new Wembley Stadium. Also a Bledisloe Cup match was contested by New Zealand and Australia outside of either country for the first time; held in Hong Kong with the hope of raising awareness of rugby in China.
Bryce Lawrence is a former professional international rugby union referee from the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand.He is now the National Referee Manager for the New Zealand Rugby Union.
Craig Paul Joubert is a South African professional rugby union referee and a Referee Talent Development Coach at World Rugby.
The 2010 mid-year rugby union tests refers to the rugby union Internationals that were played from late May to late June, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere.
The World Rugby International Referees Panel is a panel of elite rugby union referees appointed by the sports governing body, World Rugby to officiate in international matches, usually those involving the national teams of high-performance unions from across the globe, as named by World Rugby.
Jérôme Garcès is a French rugby union referee who regularly officiates high-profile club matches in tournaments such as Pro14, Top 14 and the Heineken Cup.
Chris Pollock is a former rugby union referee who represented the New Zealand Rugby Union. In 2008, he was part of the IRB's touch judge panel. He made his international referee debut in 2005, when he refereed Niue vs Tahiti, while his first IRB appointment was in 2006, taking charge of Hong Kong vs Japan.