Bevan eyes South Africa

Steve Bale meets a referee with one thing on his mind

While Gavin Hastings will break a national record with his 53rd appearance at Murrayfield this afternoon, Derek Bevan will be breaking a world record when he completes a full set of Five Nations fixtures in refereeing the Scotland-Ireland match.

This will be the 46-year-old Welshman's 26th Test since his first - England against Romania - in 1984, one more than the mark set by his brasher compatriot, Clive Norling, from 1978 to 1991. Having officiated at the 1991 World Cup final between England and Australia, Bevan now has only one ambition left.

That is to referee in South Africa, the only major country on the rugby-playing earth to have escaped the ex-collier's whistle. It would be extraordinary - as extraordinary as excluding Norling from previous World Cups - if he were not to be selected by the Welsh Rugby Union next month for the World Cup in South Africa in May.

Bevan's refereeing philosophy is as it was in '91, and is as understated and prudent as the man himself. "Nothing has changed," he said. "After it's all over, I'll be happy if everyone is talking about the players and the game rather than me. We tend to talk too much about referees. If no one mentions him, it tends to mean he's done all right."

As might be imagined, Bevan's first refereeing experience was in prosaic contrast to the grandeur of today's setting: a Cwmgors v Trebanos second-team match a few miles up the road from his home at Clydach in the Swansea Valley. Bevan, a flanker who had captained the Vardre club, had his playing career curtailed in 1973 at the age of 24 as a result of a back injury in a mining accident.

If he is chosen for the 1995 World Cup, he will be one of a maximum of four referees - along with David Bishop (New Zealand), Jim Fleming (Scotland) and Stephen Hilditch (Ireland) - to have taken part in all three tournaments. Unlike the others, he has never sent anyone off in a Test, although he estimates he has pointed the digit of doom three dozen times in all.

Bevan's 11-year international career has taken in not only both previous World Cups, but six visits to New Zealand and two to Australia, some 1,200 matches in all. However, at least one sceptic who observed his refereeing debut at Cwmgors would not have expected him to reach today's record-breaking culmination.

Nowadays, Bevan takes great delight in telling the tale. "You were bloody useless as a player," this wag told the callow debutant, "and you're even worse as a referee."