Interview - Irish referees: Johnny Watterson talks to Alain Rolland, Donal Courtney and Alan Lewis ahead of their 2006 Six Nations assignments.

There are a number of ways of looking at a referee. You can see them pejoratively with their straighten-arm salute awarding a try or benignly keeping a game flowing efficiently, pouncing on professional fouls and penalising thuggery.

Jonathan Davies, on the BBC's A Question of Sport, held a certain view in 1995. "I think you enjoy the game more if you don't know the rules. Anyway, you're on the same wavelength as the referees," he flippantly observed.

Things profoundly moved on after that year as the game went professional and referees followed. But the pressure didn't subside, despite officials being more professionally trained and the use of video evidence. The folksy amateur years were finished. Refereeing was money and Davies' opinions were of another era.

With progress other issues erupted. In 1998, a referee was held accountable for an injury during an amateur Welsh Rugby Union match - which left a player paralysed for life. Richard Vowles (29), was injured in the final scrum of a local derby between Llanharan and Tondu in January, 1998 and a Court of Appeal ruling in the UK meant that he was free to sue the WRU for damages.

The accident happened when the two frontrows failed to engage properly and the scrum collapsed with Mr Vowles seriously injuring his spine. Vowles argued in court that the referee broke a WRU rule by allowing a substitute, Chris Jones, who was not experienced as a loosehead prop, to play in the frontrow during the game and thereby weaken the scrum.

More recently, Irish referee Dave McHugh came into prominence when a spectator, Pieter Van Zyl, ran on to a pitch in South Africa - where the Springboks were playing New Zealand in a Tri-Nations match - and attacked the Irish official. Touch judge that day was Alain Rolland, who together with Donal Courtney and Alan Lewis are Ireland's three representatives on the IRB's 16-man international A panel.

"I was running touch for Dave in that match," says Rolland. "He (Van Zyl) came out of nowhere. The security guards are there for a reason and our responsibility is to the players. You have to treat it like a streaker running on to the pitch. The security go and get him."

Blowing a whistle and learning the law book is the beginning, no more. For Ireland's three panellists, the occasional disappointment is far outweighed by the positives of refereeing at the highest level. While Courtney is the most recent arrival onto the international scene, the Irish referee production line stretches far back into the amateur years.

"Only New Zealand and England have three on the international panel," says IRFU director of referee development Owen Doyle. "Ireland has always provided top referees going back to Kevin Kelleher and the IRFU have invested in it. Now guys can see it as a career. At this point we have about 10 referees under 30 years of age in All-Ireland League senior rugby."

Unusually, Rolland, Lewis and Courtney are professional referees, but they are not full-time. All have decided to maintain their careers in business and all three took up refereeing when playing the game was either no longer an option, or, in Rolland's case, a substitute for an international career. At around 31 or 32 (he can't remember) the game was turning professional and Rolland saw his future elsewhere, having won three caps with Ireland at scrumhalf.

"It happened by accident," says Rolland. "I was in Stradbrook and there was a junior match between Blackrock and Lansdowne on the lower pitch. The late Rory O'Connor came over and asked would I be interested. I said, 'I'm 'Rock'. He said, 'we don't care'. I got bitten by it."

Courtney similarly answered a calling; having taken up refereeing in 1994 after a series of injuries claimed his playing career. For the former Monkstown back, the music to his ears was a voice on the tannoy system at the Old Belvedere floodlit tournament. Courtney answered the plaintive cry of 'is there a referee in the house?'

"I didn't play, couldn't play and I thought that coaching didn't keep you that fit. Refereeing also keeps you in a game that you are passionate about and you are still close to the players," he says.

Lewis also crocked his knee playing for Old Wesley. An international cricket player, his concern was that a deterioration of the injury could jeopardise his burgeoning cricket career with Ireland. The rugby playing was chucked.

"The greatest thing is the rapport with the players. That's the most important element of the game," he says. "To communicate good or bad news and do it efficiently and effectively. People are not going to like you all the time. You make split calls, but I believe that if you are seen as a fair broker you'll be okay."

All three have contracts with the IRFU and receive a retainer and match fee as well as expenses. Up to last weekend, Lewis was officiating for 17 weeks in succession. On February 25th he will whistle in the Calcutta Cup match between Scotland and England.

Rolland has been handed the biggest game of the series, France against England in Paris while Courtney kicks off the series as television match official today when England meet Wales.

"I think the key ingredient is that it is not about me. I am there to facilitate the game and then go," says Rolland - who according to apocryphal tales has been refereeing for 30 years, but only with a whistle since 1990.

"It will never replace the playing side of the game and in the dressingroom before a Test match it is a different feeling altogether," says the mortgage broker. "You have to have a completely different approach. You're on your own. The buck stops with you. But you are still in the thick of it and many times you'd be pinching yourself saying, 'am I really doing this'?"

Lewis, a naturally garrulous personality and a strong communicator, has been blowing at the top level since his international debut against Fiji in 1998 and even in that time the game and the job have evolved. The reality is that, with technology and the increasing demand for quality televised matches, the instant decisions made on the pitch instinctively are being subsequently picked over in newspapers and television studios. With cameras, slow motion and hindsight, pundits have little difficulty in making a referee look foolish.

"Referees are targets now," says Lewis. "I think you have got to accept that is part of the job. But 50,000 people have not come to watch the referee, but the players. There is no doubt that there is increased exposure and additional pressure, but you've got to take the rough with the smooth.

"You do occasionally mix with players. But it's not a palsy-walsy existence. Of course, I'll stand and have a drink and talk to players. But really the environment is such that it often doesn't lend itself to that."

By the nature of the game and the size of players, self-discipline is hugely important. Crowding a referee is almost non-existent at the top level. Captains speak, the rest listen, Minor breaches and the whole team is punished.

"The focus is on control," says Courtney, whose first match was a World Cup qualifier between Chile and Uruguay in 2003. "Abuse is very low. Yes, there are heated exchanges and there are times you get difficult players and coaches, but it's not insurmountable and I don't think it is as prevalent as it is in, say, soccer."

In a sense, referees are protected by the laws of the game as much as they are sometimes open to criticism for applying them. In that respect, the job is devoid of sentiment because, so far as is possible, the laws remove the need for emotional involvement. What may seem cold hearted from one side is a simple application of the law from another.

"If you send the captain of a team off for foul play, then you send him off," says Lewis. "That would not bother me in the slightest."

Left out of the initial 2003 World Cup panel before being then called off the bench because another referee was injured was a blow to Lewis early in his career. The selection process of being overlooked in the first draft was no different from that of a player being dropped from a World Cup squad. The feeling of empty disappointment and failure was difficult to ignore.

"I ended up reffing at the World Cup," says Lewis. "But it worked as a huge incentive for me to move on. Sometimes you have to be in the gutter to look at yourself and get a clear picture of what you are about. You reflect and learn about yourself. There's two ways you can go. That led to one of the highlights of my career, England against the All Blacks this year."

But it is the highs. Always the highs. Ask Rolland for a low. He can't think of one. Ask Courtney. "When it's over," he says. Nor is there one high, but a succession. The first Six Nations. The first Tri-Nations. The first international match. Rolland can't remember how many caps he has. Doesn't precisely know how long he's being doing it. Fluent in French, his communication is better than most and as a former international player his understanding cannot be questioned. Even with officials running the lines, the experience is that it is a solo event. There is no hiding in a team.

"We can be cannon fodder for coaches under pressure," says Rolland. "One down side might be that refs can be used as an out if a team is not going well. But we train every day.

"Weights, aerobic sessions. Just one day a week rest. It has to be intense. You have to give that commitment. The game now is played a way lot faster than when I played it and you have to be there to call it. You may call it wrong, but at least you are there in position.

"Some things you can coach. Some things not. You have to try to have an understanding of players and what they are trying to do. I know what players have to go through to get them to Celtic League, Heineken Cup or international level."

South Africa v the All Blacks in the 2003 Tri-Nations, Pretoria. The South African national anthem strikes up. The first half is sung in Xhosa and the second Die Stem in Afrikaans. For the second part, the rendition is volcanic. Then South Africa take the lead.

"Jesus Christ, the place erupted," says Rolland. "The hairs were standing on the back of my neck. The South Africans believed that they really could beat this All Black team. Then New Zealand blew them away (52-16)."

And there it is. Forget the laws, the interpretations and the complexities of the scrum. Refereeing is Die Stem in the South African heartland, Land of My Fathers in the Millenium Stadium. Emotions. Memories.

Donal Gerard Courtney

Born: Dublin, May 22nd, 1964.

Occupation: Chartered accountant.

Family: Married to Sarah with three children.

Playing career: Wing for Monkstown.

Started refereeing: 1992.

Referees' Society: Leinster Branch of Referees.

First Test: 2002, Uruguay v USA.

Alan Lewis

Born: Cork, June 1st, 1964.

Occupation: Managing director of an insurance brokerage.

Family: Married to Sharon with two children.

Playing career: Old Wesley.

Started refereeing: 1987.

Referees' Society: Leinster Association.

First Test: 1998, Argentina v France.

Alain Colm Pierre Rolland

Born: Dublin, August 22nd, 1966.

Occupation: Mortgage broker.

Family: Married to Liz with two children.

Playing career: Blackrock College, Leinster and three caps as a scrumhalf for Ireland 1990-95.

Started refereeing: 1996.

Referees' Society: Leinster Branch of Referees.

First Test: 2001, Wales v Romania.