John Lacey and George Clancy awarded Six Nations matches

Former Munster player John Lacey and George Clancy are Ireland's sole referee representatives in the 2016 Six Nations Championship, which gets underway in February.

Appointments were made by the World Rugby Match Official Selection Committee at a meeting in London and follow a detailed review of all performances during Rugby World Cup 2015.

Lacey will officiate in Scotland’s game against England at Murrayfield in the first day of the competition with Clancy taking charge in the second weekend in Cardiff for Wales against Scotland.

Ireland open against Wales in Aviva Stadium with French referee Jerome Garces in charge. Ireland also has South Africa's Jaco Peyper for the France game in Paris and Romain Poite for the meeting with England in Twickenham.

For Ireland's home game against Italy, a new face in Australia's Angus Gardner will officiate with Pascal Gauzere taking charge of Ireland's meeting with Scotland on March 19th.

Craig Joubert has been appointed assistant referee for that game at the Aviva Stadium.

The South African infuriated the Scots when he awarded a last-minute penalty to Australia, which allowed the Wallabies to take the lead in their World Cup quarter-final at Twickenham.

World Rugby later admitted Joubert was wrong to award the decisive penalty, which Bernard Foley converted to seal a 35-34 victory.

The governing body confirmed that the award – which penalised a knock-on by Jon Welsh – should have in fact been a scrum for Australia because the ball was touched by Wallaby Nick Phipps.

Joubert further enraged Scotland by sprinting off the pitch without shaking hands as soon as he blew the full-time whistle.

Scotland great Gavin Hastings branded his actions "despicable" and former captain Andy Nicol called him a "coward".

The 38-year-old will return to Twickenham to take charge of England’s clash with Wales on March 12th in his only other Six Nations appointment.

Three referees – Peyper of South Africa, Glen Jackson of New Zealand and Poite – have received two appointments each with a total of 12 referees involved. Australian Gardner will make his championship debut in Dublin on March 12th. The 31-year-old from Sydney, who was an assistant referee at RWC 2015, refereed his first full international in 2011 and already has five Tests under his belt.

From the RWC panel, Gardner replaces New Zealander Chris Pollock, whose retirement from international refereeing was announced earlier today by New Zealand Rugby. In total, Pollock took charge of 22 Tests throughout his career.

As usual, the appointments for the 15 championship fixtures feature a blend of northern and southern hemisphere match officials. Several of the assistant referees being used for this year’s Six Nations are graduates of the 2013 and 2014 World Rugby U20 Championship.

Sat Feb 6th: France v Italy, Paris. JP Doyle (RFU); Scotland v England, Edinburgh. John Lacey (IRFU)

Sun Feb 7th: Ireland v Wales, Dublin. Jérôme Garcès (FFR)

Sat Feb 13th: France v Ireland, Paris. Jaco Peyper (SARU); Wales v Scotland, Cardiff. George Clancy (IRFU)

Sun Feb 14th: Italy v England, Rome. Glen Jackson (NZR)

Fri Feb 26th: Wales v France, Cardiff. Wayne Barnes (RFU)

Sat Feb 27th: Italy v Scotland, Rome. Jaco Peyper (SARU); England v Ireland, Twickenham, Romain Poite (FFR)

Sat Mar 12th: Ireland v Italy, Dublin. Angus Gardner (ARU); England v Wales, Twickenham. Craig Joubert (SARU)

Sun Mar 13th: Scotland v France, Edinburgh. Glen Jackson (NZR)

Sat Mar 19th: Wales v Italy, Cardiff. Romain Poite (FFR); Ireland v Scotland, Dublin. Pascal Gauzere (FFR); France v England,Paris. Nigel Owens (WRU)