Made Spain mad

the tournament against the hosts.

The whole unsavoury episode serves to underline the importance of whiter-than-white refereeing appointments.

World Rugby painted themselves into a corner last week by managing to assign an official to England last week who was due to be part of the refereeing team against Ireland four days later. Nigel Owens was hurriedly called up to replace Marius van der Westhuizen when the oversight came to light.

World Rugby had failed to notice the South African had been appointed by them as assistant referee for the Grand Slam game when answering a request by England, in November, for a Southern Hemisphere official to help out at training.

While they are at it, World Rugby need to scrap the tradition of the pre-Test meeting between the referee and the respective coaches when each points out the antics of their opponents.

It has always seemed strange why they should be allowed to try to influence the official before the game.

Let the coaches coach and the referees referee. And don’t let Romanian pharmaceutical reps anywhere near World Cup games.

NEIL SQUIRES’ SIX NATIONS DREAM TEAM

15 14 13 12 11 10 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Matteo Minozzi Keith Earls Huw Jones Hadleigh Parkes Jacob Stockdale Johnny Sexton Conor Murray Cian Healy Guilhem Guirado Tadhg Furlong Alun Wyn Jones Jonny Gray John Barclay Yacouba Camara CJ Stander