Joy Neville To Referee Women’s Sevens Series

World Rugby have announced the panel of referees to officiate on the Men’s and Women’s HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series for 2016/17, the first within the new four-year Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games cycle.

Sevens made its game-changing debut at Rio 2016 and with several referees moving on after achieving their Olympic dream, there is an exciting injection of new talent to both the Men's and Women's panels, reflecting the strong competition for places.

A record 60 referees were nominated for inclusion on this series from 29 Unions across the men's and women's panels. In all, 21 match officials have been selected for the Men's Series, while 12 will officiate on the Women's Series.

The Women's panel for the upcoming World Series includes former Munster and Ireland captain Joy Neville. The Grand Slam winner ended her playing days three years ago and has since made great progress as an IRFU referee.

Last March the Limerick woman, who works as LIT's Rugby Development Officer, refereed her first Women's RBS 6 Nations game (Wales Women v Italy Women) and first men's international (Wales U18s v England U18s).

On the domestic scene, Neville regularly takes charge of Ulster Bank League matches and has also had a couple of recent appointments as an assistant referee in the Guinness PRO12.

The former number 8, who played both 15s and Sevens for Ireland during her 11-year career, refereed at the 2015 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series qualifying tournament and last June's Olympic Women's Sevens Repechage, both at UCD, as well as the Women's Rugby Super Series in Salt Lake City in July.

Neville is one of five former international players to be selected across the Men's and Women's World Sevens Series refereeing panels for 2016/17. The others are former England Sevens player Richard Haughton, who scored more than 100 Series tries between 2000 and 2006, Damon Murphy (Australia),Rebecca Mahoney (New Zealand) and Hollie Davidson (Scotland).

The Munster Association of Referees (MAR) run two courses every season for people interested in becoming match officials. For more information, contact Peter Fitzgibbon on peter.fitzgibbon@irfu.ie.

Munster Rugby launched the Community Referee Initiative in the province last year. Two of these courses are taking place tonight (Wednesday, October 5) in Cork and Limerick with full details here.