Last season both Owens and England’s Wayne Barnes drew level with South Africa’s Jonathan Kaplan and Ireland’s Alain Rolland long standing record of refereeing 17 championship matches.
Owens will create a new record of 18 matches in charge in the final match of the opening round of the championship at Stade de France. However he will not have long to pop the champagne corks as Barnes will equal that number in the third round when he officiates the clash between France and Italy.
Owens will only have to wait another day though to reclaim the record when he breaks new ground by refereeing his very first Calcutta Cup clash between arch rivals Scotland and England.
But in the penultimate round, Barnes will join Owens as the new joint record holders with 19 matches next to their name when he heads for Dublin in the penultimate round of the championship when Ireland host Scotland.
Owens plays down the record, saying: “They’re just numbers at the end of the day but when you get to those milestones it’s always nice to reflect really on how long you have been part of this wonderful tournament.
“The first round of the Six Nations is big because in the first round everyone can win and everyone wants to win – the first round is always big anyway but it’s a bit more special this year as it’s my 11th or 12th season in the Six Nations – I’ve been around a while now – it will be my 18th Test match in the championship which will take me past Alain Rolland and Jonathan Kaplan as the referees who have refereed the most Six Nations – and my good mate Barnsey is just the one game behind me but he will catch up with me when he does his next game.”
Owens, with only six international games behind him, made his bow in the Six Nations in 2007 and the memories are still crystal clear a decade on.
“I remember it well, it was England against Italy up at Twickenham – it was my first big match really, I’d done a couple of internationals before but I don’t think you become an international referee until you’ve refereed a Six Nations game or a Rugby Championship game – or back then, a Tri Nations games.
“Whenever you do your first Six Nations game there is always something special – it is one of the most wonderful tournaments, no doubt.”
Having already achieved everything in the game that is possible for modern days refs – ie: European Cup finals, World Cup finals etc – Owens is looking forward to another first in his career, however.
“It’s strange to think I have never done a Calcutta Cup game before – when I do Ireland v France that will be my 80th Test match and the Calcutta Cup will be my 81st. Traditionally the Welsh referees – Derek Bevan, Clive Norling, Clayton Thomas – everyone tended to do the Calcutta Cup as a Welshman a few times – I’m looking forward to it – I don’t have a bucket list of wanting to tick of things before I finish off refereeing because that would mean I was refereeing for the wrong reason but it’s nice to achieve something I haven’t done before.
“It will be just another game for me in the way I approach it – and do my best like I have in any other test match but it is something special doing it for the first time.
Owens has no hesitation when asked to recall his most memorable game in the world’s most famous championship.
“Everyone is memorable in their own way butI think the standout game would have been in 2015 on Super Saturday when Wales beat Italy by a huge score and they were the Six Nations champions at that time. But an hour and half later Ireland beat Scotland pretty well to get as many points as they needed to jump to Six Nations champions and then I’m refereeing the last game of the day between France and England – where if France beat England by a certain number of points they were then in the running and England needed to beat France by 20 or 25 points to overtake Ireland and become the champions so that was a most wonderful day of rugby.
“I don’t think you could have written the script. England won convincingly but were still short by five points to win the Six Nations. It was only when I came off someone said England were only five points short of the crown going to Twickenham instead of Ireland.”
And with 100 test matches tantalisingly close, is Owens aiming to become the first referee in history to reach the magical figure?
“As referees you don’t ref week in week out in Test matches like you do as a player so it takes a lot longer for referees to arrive at that milestone – if it comes along it would be absolutely special, there is no doubt about that.
“All I am doing is enjoying my refereeing at the moment and as long as the body stays fit and I’m still getting appointed Test matches then I’ll keep enjoying it.
“Every game I referee I will treat it as the last one, and enjoy it because one day – I’ll be right and it will be my last game.”
