South Africa's Craig Joubert is one of ten referees named on the merit panel for the 2012 Super Rugby season. Photo / Getty Images
New Zealand whistleblower Mike Fraser is one of five new names added to the pool to referee the 2012 Super Rugby competition.
Fraser is joined by Australians Angus Gardner and Andrew Lees and South Africans Lourens van der Merwe and Stuart Berry on the reserve panel, who will back up
the merit panel of the region's top referees.
"We plan to give our merit panel referees around 80 per cent of the games in Super Rugby next year with the reserve panel picking up the balance," Sanzar referees boss Lyndon Bray said. "Our aim is for the best referees to be refereeing the most rugby. The reserve panel will operate in a similar way to a rugby team's reserve bench."
Four referees from 2011 will not be involved next year. Australian Stuart Dickinson has retired, while Vinny Munro, Pro Legoete and Nathan Pearce were not selected.
"Stuart had a very celebrated career in the top flight for many years and he will be sorely missed by our team," Bray said. "Knowing that we are likely to lose some more referees from our team next year, it was important to balance the new guys selected for 2012 with some maturity and experience. We believe we have a strong team of referees for Super Rugby 2012 and some new competition will be healthy within our team.
The full Sanzar referee team is:
Merit Panel: Keith Brown (NZ), Marius Jonker (SA), Craig Joubert (SA), Jonathan Kaplan (SA), Bryce Lawrence (NZ), Mark Lawrence (SA), Jaco Peyper (SA), Chris Pollock (NZ), Steve Walsh (AUS) and Garratt Williamson (NZ).
Reserve Panel: Stuart Berry (SA), Mike Fraser (NZ), Angus Gardner (AUS), Glen Jackson (NZ), Andrew Lees, (AUS) Ian Smith (AUS), Lourens van der Merwe (SA) and Jonathon White (NZ).
