TRAIL-blazing Devon referee Sara Cox revealed an insight into the joys and pressures of refereeing at the top level during an interview on national radio.

Cox, recently appointed an MBE for services to rugby union, made history in 2016 when she became the first female referee to be centrally contracted by the Rugby Football Union. Fittingly, she received her MBE at Windsor Castle from Princess Anne, who is the Patron of the Scottish Rugby Union.

The numerous firsts clocked-up by Cox as a woman referee include:

- Officiating at three Women’s rugby World Cups

- Refereeing at two Olympics and the Commonwealth Games

- Controlled Test matches and games in the Women’s Six Nations Championship

- And in September 2021 Cox was the first woman to referee a Premiership game when she took control of a game between Harlequins and Worcester Warriors at the Stoop.

Cox catalogued a succession of highlights from here career so far during her guest appearance on the Saturday Live show on BBC Radio 4. She also touched on the stressful side of her job, which included death threats.

Explaining her decision to stay on social media as a way of keeping her career visible, Cox said it also made it easy for critics to take aim, as she discovered after refereeing the gold-medal match between New Zealand and France at the Tokyo Olympics.

“After the Olympic final, I had a very full inbox in Tokyo, and there were some really quite nasty things in there, including death threats,” said Cox.

“People get very passionate about rugby.”

Cox, 32, took-up refereeing in 2007 after her playing career with Cullompton and Exeter Saracens ended prematurely due to injury.

She graduated from the Devon RRS to the National League panel as a first step towards the Premiership.

After experiencing European rugby in the ECPR Challenge Cup, and the Women’s 2017 World Cup in Ireland, Cox moved up to the Championship in 2018, debuting in the game between Cornish Pirates and Doncaster Knights.

It was only a question of time before Cox got an opportunity in the Premiership. During 2020 and 2021 she was exposed to top-flight rugby as a touch-judge and finally got out in the middle in September 2021 when Harlequins faced Worcester Warriors at the Stoop.

More than two years later Cox’ recollection of the day remains vivid.

“As I stood in the tunnel somebody said to me, ‘when you go out there, just look around because you'll never get this feeling again’,” said Cox.

“You look around and you think, right. There's a lot of people in here. There's a lot of attention here and you just go ‘wow’.

“Then you switch into ‘right I've got a job to do’ – and the minute that first whistle goes, that's it. All bets are off; you're into the game.”

Cox revealed that despite all the international exposure she has had it was a game closer to home that she rates as her number-one rugby experience: the Army-against-Navy game at Twickenham in the Inter-Services Championship.

“It was the first game back after Covid (and) goes down as the best game in my career,” said Cox.

“As referees we don’t get to sing our own National Anthem very often so to be in a stadium with 60,000 other people singing the same anthem as you was special.”

Although Cox was not the first woman to join the Devon Rugby Referee’s Society – both Natalie Armor and Jane Hosker preceded here – she is the first to make a career out of the game.

Looking back at her first steps towards a career in rugby refereeing, Cox likened it to walking through a patch of stinging nettles.

“You're treading that pathway and you've got to knock those nettles down and along the way, you're going to get stung because that that unfortunately is just the way it's got to go,” she said.

“The person behind will follow the path you've already trodden, so therefore there's less stinging nettles.

“When I started there were two other people and I was lucky enough then to take on the baton and continue that run.”

DEVON’s globe-trotting referee Luke Pearce has been reflecting on his career ahead of another international assignment, this time in South Africa.

Pearce is among an elite panel of whistlemen selected to officiate at the Investec Champions Cup in the republic. The competition brings together the best club sides from the main rugby-playing nations, who contest the early rounds in national pools.

Pearce has flown out to South Africa for the early elements of the knockout stages. He has a weekend appointment (April 5) in Pretoria for host club Bulls against French side Lyon in the round-of-16 fixture to whet the appetite.

“Hopefully there will be another game next week in the quarter-finals, although who it is and where won’t be known until after this weekend’s games,” said Pearce.

It is yet another high-profile appointment for the Exeter-based referee, who recently clocked-up his 50th international when he took charge of the Wales-against-France match in the Six Nations tournament.

Pearce, 36, started officiating with the Devon Rugby Referees’ Society in 2005. His first game was in the middle of Crediton 2nd XV and Newton Abbot 3rd XV. He was earmarked as a high-flyer early in his career and by 2011 was appearing in the Premiership. It’s a long way from Crediton 3rd XV to the Rugby World Cup – Pearce officiated at the 2019 edition in Japan and the 2023 competition France – but it’s a journey that’s got some way to go.

“I am not done yet,” said Pearce. “I love what I am doing as there is nothing better than being out on the rugby pitch.

“It’s been quite a journey from Crediton, but the sport remains the same – and ball is still the same shape!”

Although Pearce has enjoyed more than a decade at the top, he has not fallen into the trap of regarding high-profile matches as routine. “Northampton against Saracens on a Friday night in the Premiership is a totally different game to Wales against France in Cardiff,” said Pearce.

“Adapting to it can be a challenge, which South Africa will be as well, but it is part of the job.”

Pearce was the reserve referee for the 2023 Rugby World Cup final – ready to run-on in the event Wayne Barnes went down injured – and is aiming to be at the next World Cup in Australia.

“To be involved, even as number four in the final, and to watch Wayne take on that game was awesome,” said Pearce.

Although Barnes bowed out as a referee after the World Cup final, Pearce has no plans to all it a day yet.

“We work in four-year cycles between World Cups and have been retained for the next cycle,” he said.

“After that it is down to World Rugby to decide, but I hope I can carry on for another eight years and get to another World Cup, by when I will be 44.”

Pearce has time on his side for more landmark games to referee, including his biggest wish of all.

“I want to referee a knockout game at the next Rugby World Cup in Australia,” he said.