AN all Irish panel of match officials will take charge of Friday night’s Guinness PRO14 play-off semi-final clash between Glasgow Warriors and Ulster.

John Lacey will referee the game, while Andrew Brace and George Clancy will be assistant referees, with Olly Hodges as the Television Match Official.

While it is far from unprecedented in the PRO14 to have match officials for a match from the same country as one of the competing teams, the decision to appoint four Irishmen for this match while using four Welshmen (referee: Ben Whitehouse; assistant referees: Nigel Owens and Dan Jones; and TMO: Ian Davies) for the European Champions Cup play-off encounter between Ospreys and the Scarlets the following day seems to have created an unnecessary source of potential tension if the game .

Meanwhile, Scotsman Mike Adamson will be the man in the middle of the other PRO14 play-off semi-final between with Lloyd Linton and Keith Allen assisting, and Neil Paterson as the TMO on Saturday afternoon.