Referee: Jamie Callaghan (St Helens)
First known Oxford game, certainly hasn't refereed us before but he has refereed South Wales twice this season and they lost both. Also touch judge for Warrington v Castleford this Saturday. Has been to Australia a bit, and apparently also to London:


Touch Judge: Gary Melling (Oldham)
First known Oxford game. Normally referees in the National Conference League. Was the rugby league teacher of the year in 2014, but missed the presentation on the pitch at the Grand Final as he was with his class in the stands. But he was around to collect the regional prize a little earlier that year (that looks national schools finals day at Richmond in Surrey in which case I was sitting in that stand):


Touch Judge: Paul Cromer (Widnes)
Late-ish change as it was initially Jason Page of Wigan. Paul Cromer has been touch judge at this level for just over a year, including a number of Oxford games, most recently last week against Newcastle. Here he is as touch judge for England v France Under-16s at Featherstone last year - he's the one on the left:


Reserve Referee: Rob Foxley (Manchester)
First known Oxford game. Has posted on Facebook that he is looking forward to it! Supports Salford and Manchester United. Here he is a year ago watching a pass very carefully:


Match Commissioner: Alan Smith (Llanfynydd)
Obviously a complete coincidence, but was last match commissioner for an Oxford match in our visit to South Wales last season. In the year since then, I have learnt how to spell correctly the name of his base but I reckon I still won't be able to pronounce it properly. Here he is with the World Cup - in fact, if that's at Neath I was at that game and standing on that terrace when Wales lost:

That's Neath. I was living it up in the stands that day. Don't know if you stuck around but after the stadium had all but emptied the Islanders did a wonderful haka to celebrate their first world cup win. They all had enormous grins on their faces, you could see how much it meant to them. Sadly, I watched half the work cup matches live, Neath was the only place to appear totally disinterested. You could have passed the day in the town oblivious to the fact a world cup match was taking place

Yes, I stayed for the haka. I really did spend the day in Neath, in order to take advantage of cheapest possible train tickets. It ranks as one of the worst places I have ever had the misfortune to visit, and I hope I never have to go again. I think their apathy to the World Cup was just a reflection of the general air of completely justified depression around the town. Still nicer than Goole, though.