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Rasivhenge, Crouse named on RWC Sevens panel

Alhambra Nievas, left, pictured alongside Rasta Rasivhenge at the World Rugby Awards in 2016. World Rugby/World Rugby via Getty Images

South Africans Rasta Rasivhenge and Ben Crouse were named on the refereeing panel for the 2018 Rugby World Cup Sevens in San Francisco in July.

The group of 19 match officials from 14 nations will take charge of a total of 84 matches during the three day event from 20-22 July.

"This is a wonderful achievement for Rasta and Ben and we are extremely proud of them being selected to the final panel," Banks Yantolo, SA Rugby's Referee Manager, said in a statement.

"Both have done very well on the sevens fields of the world and this is a well-deserved call-up to them."

Rasivhenge refereed the men's gold-medal match at the Rio Olympic Games in 2016 and will join Richard Kelly (New Zealand), Craig Evans (Wales), Sam Grove-White (Scotland), Damon Murphy (Australia), Jeremy Rozier (France), Matt Rodden (Hong Kong), Richard Haughton (England), Damian Schneider (Argentina) and Mike O'Brien (USA) in the 52 match men's competition, which will feature 24 teams.

Crouse is part of the 16-team women's event, and will share the duties in the 32 matches with Alhambra Nievas (Spain), Joy Neville (Ireland), Sara Cox (England), Adam Jones (Wales), Sakurako Kawasaki (Japan), Hollie Davidson (Scotland), Rebecca Mahoney (New Zealand) and Beatrice Benvenuti (Italy).