Nigel Owens: The Final Whistle

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Newcastle were playing Norwich at St James’ in a fortnight and again, in my eyes it was merely a reference to some of the play-acting that can blight football and I was letting Hogg know what he did wasn’t acceptable. I don’t know why I uttered those particular words, maybe I’d watched a few football games beforehand and saw attempts to con the referee which annoyed me? What a great player, but what a great captain and what a great man, and the way he came up and handled that situation and said 'look, mistakes happen, let's just get on with it'. I thought to myself, that is what a true, great rugby player is. A genuine person, and a great leader as well.

After chatting for a while about other things amongst ourselves, we sat down for a meal. If you can imagine it being Christmas Day, with one of those huge family tables everyone gathers around, well that was pretty much what the scene was like inside the Palace. Only on a much grander scale, needless to say. I let it go for a little while, but when I awarded Munster a scrum for a turnover, after their excellent and inspirational captain Paul O’Connell had held up the ball in a maul, Botes started complaining about the Irishman not releasing. I’d had enough. I blew my whistle, called Botes and his captain Antonio Pavanello over for a word. We were all in fits of laughter in the changing room. Priceless. Imagine that one had been caught on the mic!” It was a truly wonderful gesture, touching and indeed typical of the support the WRU had given me down the years,” writes Owens. He was without doubt the best referee of his era, taking charge of the World Cup final, 100 Test matches, a record number of Six Nations games and also seven European Cup finals.

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Now, if he comes in and tries to go for the ball, but in doing so, because of the speed, his hand touches the ground around the ball, but that is not keeping his weight up, which means he’s supporting his own body weight, then we won’t necessarily penalise the hand touching the ground. We detail here just a small section of some of the ones Owens writes about in his new book: This is not soccer It is something I'm looking forward to but also a bit of realisation that this could be my last Test match." So that’s what the referee decides, the referee needs to decide was that hand supporting the body weight before he goes onto the ball?

Towards the end of the second half one of the players asked him if he could tell him when there were five minutes remaining and indeed repeated the request a little while later. However, it got so awkward that at one stage I even had an informal chat over coffee with the Rugby Football Union’s referees’ manager, Tony Spreadbury, about switching to their refereeing banner across the Severn Bridge in England. That was the last thing I wanted to do really as a fiercely proud Welshman. My coach and TMO Derek Bevan gave me some sound advice. ‘You decide when you want to finish Nigel and don’t let anyone else force you into it. You’ll know when the time is right,’ were his words of wisdom. And if so, it would be a penalty if he feels well; he just touched the ground around the ball, and it’s not supporting his body weight, then we’d have a play on.”A European Cup game at The Stoop between Robshaw’s Harlequins and Castres. A lineout throw from Quins hooker Dave Ward is so crooked it’s caught by team-mate Robshaw almost in the scrum-half position. But while Owens is candid about events that happened, for the most part this is a hugely positive book which he feels will make the reader smile - 'even bring an occasional tear to the eye', he says. I told her I’d met Princess Anne, who is patron of the Scotland team, on a couple of occasions. She had been presented to the two sets of players and match officials on the pitch ahead of matches up at Murrayfield, and also at the World Cup event held at the Palace during my first visit there as part of a group of referees in 2015. Owens says he was too blase about the match, turned up with the wrong attitude and what happened was his fault, not the young player's.

Ah yes, I do like a bit of rugby. Tell me Nigel, why don’t they put the ball in straight at a scrum any more?’ He has also had huge success as media pundit, as TV presenter, star of adverts and his warmth and affability always shining through.

It was in the main a story of acceptance, even though he has faced some homophobic barbs and poison pen letters, not to mention death threats following some of his on-field decisions. The first thing I noticed on arriving at the Palace was that I was able to keep my mobile phone with me! On a visit during the World Cup we had to hand them in, presumably to prevent photographs being taken inside the inner sanctum. When I went to hand it over again, the head butler to the Queen, himself a big rugby fan, told me, ‘Keep it, Nigel. If I thought you were dodgy I wouldn’t have let you in anyway!’ We'll have to see, but this could be my last Test match at the weekend. So there is a bit of a realisation around the fact that this could be the last time I walk out on to the field for a Test match. It's been a strange one this week because I had TB [bovine tuberculosis] testing on the farm on Monday and thankfully everything was fine," Owens tells BBC Sport Wales. Owens has become a household name thanks to his witty rapport with players on the field, as well as his media appearances away from it too.