SCOTLAND'S players are to come face to face with Craig Joubert, the referee who ran off the field at Twickenham after his blunder helped deny the Scots a place in the Rugby World Cup semi finals.

He will run the line in their final game of the RBS Six Nations Championship in March, a week after his first involvement in international rugby following his controversial performance last month.

The South African official went into the World Cup rated as one of the leading referees in the game but did not get any of the high-profile matches after the World Rugby issued a statement saying there was no question he made a mistake in awarding Australia a penalty less than two minutes from the end of their match against Scotland when the Wallabies were trailing by two points.

Bernard Foley, the Australian fly half, won the game with the kick, but Joubert came in for stinging criticism from Scottish pundits when he got to the final whistle and, instead of staying in the centre of the pitch to shake hands with both captains and his fellow officials, as is customary, ran straight for the tunnel.

World Rugby's statement a couple of days later did nothing to soften the sense of injustice.

He is asked to take full charge of only one game in the Six Nations – only three referees, Jaco Peyper, Glen Jackson and Romain Poite have been asked to take two – a return to Twickenham for England's meeting with Wales in the fourth round of games.

Scotland open at Murrayfield against England with Ireland's John Lacey in charge and then have another Irish official in, George Clancy, when they visit Cardiff to play Wales.

Peyper has the whistle for their game in Rome and then a few Scottish fans will be perturbed to see Jackson back at Murrayfield – where he takes charge of the game against France.

The big controversy will be reserved for Joubert, however, who is the senior assistant referee in the final game in Dublin, which means that if anything happens to Pascal Gauzerre, who is in charge of the game, Joubert would take over.

Significantly, he is not asked to turn up at Murrayfield, where his reception might be more hostile, in any capacity.

More significantly for the state of the game in Scotland, there is no Scottish official on the list in any capacity – not even a television match official to spare the Scottish Rugby Union's blushes at the latest proof of the sorry state of Scottish officiating.