Cape Town - South Africa’s Jaco Peyper will referee Saturday’s Super Rugby final between the Lions and Crusaders at Ellis Park in Johannesburg (16:00 kick-off).
SANZAAR has kept faith with Peyper, who also refereed the semi-final between the Lions and Hurricanes last weekend.
The assistant referees will be New Zealand’s Glen Jackson, who refereed the Crusaders v Chiefs semi-final, and South Africa’s Marius van der Westhuizen.
The television match official (TMO) is Marius Jonker.
SANZAAR CEO Andy Marinos explained the rationale behind the decisions: “SANZAAR congratulates Jaco Peyper and all the match officials selected to this year’s final. The match official selection is never easy as we have a very dedicated group of officials who week in week out perform very professionally and to very high standards.
“The selection criteria for all match official appointments for the last two years follows a clear tournament policy - as agreed by the SANZAAR executive committee and the tournament’s stakeholders - that such appointments be merit-based.
“This policy is written into the tournament protocols and appointments are made according to this policy on a weekly basis and is also the policy used for the finals last year as well as this year.
“This merit-based policy was reflected with the appointment last year of New Zealand referee Glen Jackson to referee the Hurricanes v Lions final in Wellington. SANZAAR stands behind the policy and believes the best referees should be available to officiate the best matches,” added Marinos.
2017 Super Rugby final match officials:
Match referee: Jaco Peyper
Assistant referee (1): Glen Jackson
Assistant referee (2): Marius van der Westhuizen
Television match official (TMO): Marius Jonker