Andrew Brace will referee England’s Six Nations clash with Italy (Image: GETTY)
welcome Italy to Twickenham today as Steve Borthwick’s men go in search of their third victory of the year. And the game is set to be refereed by an official who was withdrawn from his duties after he took charge of England’s Autumn Nations Series victory over France in 2020.
England opened their 2025 Six Nations campaign with a at the start of February before in their second match. The 2003 Rugby World Cup champions then kept themselves in contention for silverware with a second one-point victory as they by the narrowest of margins last time out.
There will be plenty of pressure hanging over the players at Twickenham this weekend. But referee Andrew Brace may also be feeling the heat in light of England’s controversial win over France four-and-a-half years ago.
England overcame their rivals 22-19 on that occasion to lift the Autumn Nations Series trophy after fly-half Owen Farrell had kicked the winning penalty in the second half of extra-time.
However, Brace came under fire after appearing to miss a knock-on in the lead-up to a Luke Cowan-Dickie try that had forced the match into extra-time. The France backroom set-up also felt Brace was responsible for other decisions that had contributed to the visitors’ defeat.
At the time, France head coach Fabien Galthie insisted: “The game was won by decisions, not actions.” And he added: “Losing because of decisions is hard.”
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England defeated France in extra-time to win the 2020 Autumn Nations Series title (Image: GETTY)
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Brace later revealed he had been sent vile abuse online in the aftermath of the clash as he told : “As well as the death threats, I had people telling me never to come back to France again.
“I had more than a thousand messages on and someone made a parody profile of me on Twitter just to abuse me.
“The first tweet they’d have seen was about my dad’s obituary. My dad went on a road trip where he’d traced his father’s footsteps from World War II. That was my pinned tweet at the top of my page and they jumped on it saying I was a s*** referee, that I’d ruined the game.
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“Some of them were asking how much I’d been paid to get England over the line. One of the messages my sister got said none of my family should ever come to France again. Another said they hoped I’d die of , I hope your family die of .”
Brace had been due to officiate Exeter Chiefs’ Champions Cup clash with Toulouse a few days later.
But the abuse was so bad that referee chiefs decided to remove him from his duties in order to take him out of the firing line.