Dickinson out; Pro's big chance
Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:07
Pro Legoete: No longer the bridesmaid
Stuart Dickinson is injured and has had to withdraw from the Super 14 match between the Cheetahs and the Highlanders in Bloemfontein. His place is taken by Pro Legoete of South Africa.
The change has also meant that Andrew Lees of Australia will no longer be an assistant referee, his place taken by Cobus Wessels while Craig Joubert, who is refereeing at Newlands the night before, will take the place of Stu Berry as an assistant referee.
Always a bridesmaid but never a bride; always and assistant referee but never a referee. For the second week in a row this has proved not to be the case for Pro Legoete of the Golden Lions, the 19th time he had been assistant referee in a Super Rugby match.
Last weekend he was an assistant referee in Durban when the Sharks played the Cheetahs and replaced Jonathan Kaplan at half-time when a virus stopped Kaplan's performance. The transition from Kaplan to Legoete was a smooth one and the match proceeded without problems, in fact with a calm, confident performance by the man refereeing a Super Rugby match for the first time.
This will be Legoete's first appointment to a Super 14 match, not that he is a stranger to refereeing in Super 14 as he has regularly been an assistant referee at such matches, in South Africa and in Australasia. and he has three Tests on his CV.
Legoete, whose first name is really Lesego, became South Africa's 63rd Test referee in 2008 when he refereed a Test between Romania and Uruguay in Bucharest. Last year he did his fourth Test, appointed by the International Rugby Board to a World Cup qualifier between Uganda and Kenya.
Born and bred in Johannesburg on 19 October 1976 Legoete went to Mondeor High School in the south of Johannesburg before going on to Rand Afrikaans University, now part of the University of Johannesburg. Always a keen sportsman his fellows nicknamed him Pro. At RAU he played fullback, centre and flyhalf for the university's first XV and represented South Africa at the 1996 Students' World Cup.
For a while he worked for the United Cricket Board but is now a student advisor at the University.
In 2001, aged 25, he joined the Golden Lions Referees' Society where he has made steady progress, currently one of the top six referees in South Africa.