Bryce Lawrence (born 23 December 1970) is a former professional international

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

referee from the

Bay of Plenty The Bay of Plenty ( mi, Te Moana-a-Toi) is a region of New Zealand, situated around a bight of the same name in the northern coast of the North Island. The bight stretches 260 km from the Coromandel Peninsula in the west to Cape Runawa ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. He is now the National Referee Manager for the

New Zealand Rugby Union New Zealand Rugby (NZR) is the governing body of rugby union in New Zealand. It was founded in 1892 as the New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU), 12 years after the first provincial unions in New Zealand. In 1949 it became an affiliate to t ...

Overview

Originally a primary school headmaster, Lawrence took up refereeing in 1994, following in footsteps of his father, Keith Lawrence, who had been an international rugby union referee from 1985 to 1991. Making his first class debut in 1997, Bryce took charge of his first

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Building on various Southern Hem ...

match in 2005, controlling a game between the

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...

and Chiefs. His more notable matches in charge include the

2008 Super 14 The 2008 Super 14 season started in February 2008 with pre-season matches held from mid-January. It finished on 31 May, when the Crusaders won their seventh Super Rugby title with a 20–12 victory over the Waratahs in front of the Crusaders' ...

semi-final between the Waratahs and the

Sharks Sharks are a group of elasmobranch fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the clade Selachimorp ...

, the final of the

2008 Air New Zealand Cup The 2008 Air New Zealand Cup was a provincial rugby union competition involving 14 teams from New Zealand. Matches started on Thursday 31 July 2008, and continued until the final on 25 October 2008. This season was the third of the expanded co ...

and two test matches involving

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

in the 2008 Tri Nations. Lawrence refereed his first Tri Nations matches during the 2008 series. Lawrence refereed the first

British & Irish Lions The British & Irish Lions is a rugby union team selected from players eligible for the national teams of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The Lions are a test side and most often select players who have already played for their national ...

test during their 2009 tour of South Africa and was an assistant referee in the second test. He refereed the Six Nations France versus England match in 2010. Bryce Lawrence refereed the quarterfinal in the 2011 rugby world cup between South Africa and Australia. He performed poorly, making mistakes which affected the outcome of the match. He allegedly received threats from South African supporters and refused to referee there during the 2012 Super Rugby season. Lawrence was dropped from the nine-man elite panel in 2012. During the

2012 ITM Cup 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

Lawrence refereed his 200th first class match. The milestone was played between

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

and

Taranaki Rugby Football Union Taranaki Rugby, previously the Taranaki Rugby Football Union, is the governing body for rugby union in Taranaki Region, Taranaki, New Zealand; Taranaki is a Regions of New Zealand, region of New Zealand that covers areas in the districts of New P ...

. He is only the fourth New Zealand referee to reach the double century milestone with former New Zealand referees Paddy O'Brien (221 matches), Paul Honiss (220) and now Australian referee Steve Walsh (210) doing so before him. The 200th match was supposedly Lawrence's last match but due to other referees retaining injuries Lawrence refereed the semi-final of the

. He announced his retirement in 2012, motivated partly by reactions to his self-acknowledged poor performance in the 2011 Rugby World Cup quarter-final match between South Africa and Australia.

References

1970 births Living people New Zealand rugby union referees People from the Bay of Plenty Region Super Rugby referees Rugby World Cup referees The Rugby Championship referees Six Nations Championship referees {{NewZealand-rugbyunion-bio-1970s-stub