{"id":582004,"date":"2026-08-27T14:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T14:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/582004\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T14:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T14:10:12","slug":"referee-change-for-rgr-second-test-as-nika-amashukeli-pulled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/582004\/","title":{"rendered":"Referee change for RGR second Test as Nika Amashukeli pulled"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>  Published: 3 hours ago | 27 August 2026 06:42 EDT  <br \/> Updated: 3 hours ago | 27 August 2026 06:52 EDT  <\/p>\n<p>mens<\/p>\n<p>international<\/p>\n<p>    Referee Nika Amashukeli reacts during the Investec Champions Cup quarter-final match between Union Bordeaux-Begles and Munster Rugby at Stade Chaban-Delmas on April 12, 2025 in Bordeaux, France. (Photo by Lionel Hahn\/Getty Images) <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"expand\" src=\"https:\/\/eu-cdn.rugbypass.com\/images\/common-svg\/select-arrow.svg\" height=\"6\" width=\"11\"\/>      <a href=\"https:\/\/google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rugbypass.com%2F\" onclick=\"GATracking.sendDataLayerEvent(&#039;preferredsourcegoogle&#039;);\" aria-label=\"Google Prefered Source\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/google_preferred_source_badge_light.png\" alt=\"Google Prefered Source\" width=\"141\" height=\"44\" class=\"google-source\"\/> <\/a>     <\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a late change to the original Emirates Match Official appointment for the second Test of the Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry series in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Referee Nika Amashukeli will no longer take charge of the second Test in Cape Town, with Angus Gardner taking over the whistle in his place.<\/p>\n<p>A World Rugby statement reads: \u201cAngus Gardner will now referee this weekend\u2019s test between <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/south-africa\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South Africa<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/new-zealand\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New Zealand<\/a> in Cape Town as Nika Amashukeli has not recovered from illness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBrett Cronan (Australia) will act as his Television Match Official with Eric Gauzins (France) becoming Foul Play Review Officer and Sam Grove-White (Scotland) replacing Gardner as an assistant referee.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Amashukeli will now referee the third Test of the series in Johannesburg on 5 September, instead of Gardner, with Gauzins as his TMO, with the Australian official to act as his assistant referee.<\/p>\n<p>The Springboks are looking to bounce back after getting convincingly beaten by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/new-zealand\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">All Blacks<\/a> at Ellis Park in Johannesburg last weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Dave Rennie\u2019s men defeated South Africa 33\u201316 in the opening Test, derailing a lot of local talk on the ground in SA of a Springboks victory in the opening contest.<\/p>\n<p>Trailing 13\u201312 at half-time, the All Blacks overwhelmed the world champions after the break, scoring four unanswered tries. Will Jordan\u2019s double, plus scores from Josh Moorby, Fabien Holland and Luke Jacobson, secured a memorable win for the tourists.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we reviewed the game on Monday, we felt we were very dominant throughout up until about the 60-minute mark, and we were just a bit inaccurate in a few departments,\u201d said Rassie Erasmus after the game. \u201cThat\u2019s what this week is for. Luckily in this competition we\u2019ve still got three chances to keep going and get our game better.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of the things we asked the players to do, they did. The plan didn\u2019t win the game for us, but it\u2019s definitely also not the players who lost the game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m taking responsibility for some of the decisions we made. We\u2019re a group, but I think it\u2019s a relevant point to explain why we lost, and some of it falls more on me than on the players to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Second Test:<\/p>\n<p>Referee: Angus Gardner (Australia)<br \/>Assistant referee 1: Karl Dickson (England)<br \/>Assistant referee 2: Sam Grove-White (Scotland)<br \/>TMO: Brett Cronan (Australia)<br \/>FPRO: Eric Gauzins (France)<\/p>\n<p>Thirt Test<\/p>\n<p>Referee: Nika Amashukeli (Georgia)<br \/>Assistant referee 1: Angus Gardner (Australia)<br \/>Assistant referee 2: Christophe Ridley (England)<br \/>TMO: Eric Gauzins (France)<br \/>FPRO: Brett Cronan (Australia)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published: 3 hours ago | 27 August 2026 06:42 EDT Updated: 3 hours ago | 27 August 2026&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-582004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}