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Speaker 1: The moral outrage over run it straight competitions is a

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Speaker 1: tricky one, isn't it. More and more young men and

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Speaker 1: then more of them that run at each other head

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Speaker 1: on and try to knock each other out. As the

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Speaker 1: injuries piled up, the hand ringing well cranked into gear,

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Speaker 1: and lots of pearl clutching, lots of horror, lots that

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Speaker 1: I'm aghast. The reaction from some rugby stars and sporting

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Speaker 1: legends was a bit more nuanced, for obvious reasons, because

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Speaker 1: they also run full steam ahead at one another of

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Speaker 1: a Saturday, with great risk of personal injury and even death,

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Speaker 1: certainly the chance of broken bones and a concussion on

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Speaker 1: a rugby field. They do this because A they enjoy it.

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Speaker 1: B It's often all they've ever known, and c presumably

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Speaker 1: because it pays well, and that's the problem of the

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Speaker 1: outrage over run it straight. They had a guy in

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Speaker 1: the news yesterday who won twenty thousand dollars in trials

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Speaker 1: held in Auckland. He's now booked on a spot in

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Speaker 1: a final in Dubai. The money, he says, these are

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Speaker 1: his words, putting clothes on his kid's back. He said this,

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Speaker 1: We got to pay off some debts, stock up the

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Speaker 1: fridges and the cupboards food for our little ones. Especially

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Speaker 1: with the economy of the way it is in New Zealand,

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Speaker 1: nothing's cheap these days. He saw this as a couple

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Speaker 1: of hours work with a huge payday, And I happen

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Speaker 1: to think if somebody wants to play a high risk

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Speaker 1: sport like rugby or UFC or anything on horses, then

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Speaker 1: good on them to their life. I'm not here to

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Speaker 1: judge the question for the rest of society, and this

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Speaker 1: is what our listeners most often email me about when

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Speaker 1: it comes to run it Straight is acc To qualify

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Speaker 1: for acc your injury must be the result of an accident.

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Speaker 1: An accident is basically something you didn't intend to happen,

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Speaker 1: happening a mistake. Run it Straight is bloody dangerous, but

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Speaker 1: I think ultimately its injuries are accidents like rugby, like

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Speaker 1: horse riding. The system doesn't judge based on the threat

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Speaker 1: of injury, just whether it's an accidental one or not.

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Speaker 1: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live

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Speaker 1: to News Talk Set B from five am weekdays, or

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Speaker 1: follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.