Citing Commissioner to monitor schools rugby

• A panel of Citing Commissioners and a panel of Judicial Officers have been appointed to monitor the Inter-Schools Under-19 President’s Trophy Knock-Out Rugby Tournament, which will kick-off at Havelock Park today.

Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) will appoint a Citing Commissioner and a Judicial Officer for the four quarter-finals, two semi-finals and the final, on the request of the Sri Lanka Schools Rugby Football Association (SLSRFA).

SLR have already named three World Rugby accredited Citing Commissioners namely Pradeep Wilson, Wimal Senanayake and Wimal Perera while Aruna Jayasekera and Shahid Sanghani are the two Judicial Officers.

The SLSRFA has taken this decision with the intention of enhancing the outcome of the tournament match-results and following a series of incidents, which took place during the Super Round segment of the tournament.

A citing commissioner is an independent official, who is responsible for citing players who commit foul play which is not detected by the match officials.

Teams could bring offences to the attention of the citing commissioner for review and the citing commissioner may cite a player even if the referee has already dealt with the issue.

The Citing Commissioners may cite players for an act of foul play detected by the Match Officials, and which may have been the subject of referee action.

The two promising teams D. S. Senanayake College and Zahira College will battle it out in the first quarter-final of the President’s Trophy Knock-Out Rugby Tournament at Havelock Park on Friday. The kick-off is at 4.15 p.m.