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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine

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Speaker 1: from Newstalk ZEDB.

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Speaker 2: The hot off. New Carpety Rugby Union has taken the

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Speaker 2: unprecedented step of threatening to cancel senior club rugby matches

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Speaker 2: in response to escalating abuse towards their match officials. The

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Speaker 2: final straw came when an official last weekend was threatened

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Speaker 2: with being stabbed after he made a decision in a

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Speaker 2: club rugby game. After a meeting between the union and

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Speaker 2: its clubs and officials as well, it was decided any

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Speaker 2: further instances of serious referee abuse would lead to the

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Speaker 2: cancelation of an entire round of club rugby matches for

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Speaker 2: a weekend holif. New a Carpety Rugby Union chief executive

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Speaker 2: Corey Kennett is with us on Weekend Sport. Corey, thanks

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Speaker 2: for taking the time. This sounds bad. How bad has

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Speaker 2: the abuse of referees become at grass roots?

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Speaker 3: It's bad. It's a nationwide epidemic and it's bad. There's

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Speaker 3: no area, no provincial union in New Zealand that isn't affected,

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Speaker 3: and it's bad. What I do have to say is

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Speaker 3: it is across all sports and sadly it's a mirror

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Speaker 3: of the degradation and society of respect in particular for

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Speaker 3: authority figures, but also for volunteerism for community servants. So yeah,

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Speaker 3: it's bad out there, mate.

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Speaker 2: Do you think it's gotten worse?

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, as we've seen in the last I'm seventeen years

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Speaker 3: in as CEO, and it's definitely got worse in my time.

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Speaker 3: And what we're seeing is the more severe incidents. Sadly,

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Speaker 3: speaking with NZ, are you know you've got referees at

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Speaker 3: least one year being physically x assaulted to the point

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Speaker 3: where they need medical attention at least once a year.

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Speaker 3: Once again, we see this in other sports and the

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Speaker 3: news of you now and again, sadly, quite often in

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Speaker 3: a child's game, but more often than a men's game.

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Speaker 3: We have a teenage rugby game and givesmen the other

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Speaker 3: day spectator came on felt with their rights to get

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Speaker 3: involved in a fight. That whole lack of standing up

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Speaker 3: to the values that underpin our great game in community

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Speaker 3: sport in general, who's just been degraded, and so referee

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Speaker 3: abuses has been degraded as part of that.

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Speaker 2: As I say, you've taken what is an unprecedented step

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Speaker 2: of saying look, if this carries on, we're going to

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Speaker 2: cancel Club Rugby. We're not going to play our games here,

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Speaker 2: which would be, as I'm sure you would agree, a

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Speaker 2: great shame for the vast majority of those who participate

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Speaker 2: in rugby, playing, refereeing, spectating in a in the right way.

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Speaker 2: Do you expect to have to follow through with this?

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Speaker 3: Well, the I'm inherently positive, Piney, so that so the

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Speaker 3: enduring hope is that it doesn't have to happen. Our

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Speaker 3: whole community, as you said, are behind the decision and

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Speaker 3: they all feel the same. But if we need to,

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Speaker 3: we will. We're prepared to pull the trigger. We have

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Speaker 3: people clubs that have all all signed up to this,

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Speaker 3: realizing that their club may do nothing wrong, but because

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Speaker 3: of the actions of someone else, they might miss out

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Speaker 3: on footy for the weekend. You know what, what what

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Speaker 3: we talked about Piney in our meeting is inertia is

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Speaker 3: not an option. We just can't watch this move by

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Speaker 3: and do nothing. We've got to do something and we've

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Speaker 3: got to stand up for these these hard working volunteers.

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Speaker 3: One of the one of the rests who's came along

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Speaker 3: to our meeting that we made the decision and I

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Speaker 3: know personally that he has had three cases of serious

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Speaker 3: abuse over five years, and he was one of the

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Speaker 3: ones that was affected last week. And do you know

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Speaker 3: what he did? Three days later Pony went and put

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Speaker 3: his boots on and refft again. So these these people

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Speaker 3: are just absolutely sold of the Earth's community servants, and

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Speaker 3: and they have they have suffered some pretty hoorendous stuff,

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Speaker 3: So we've got to back them.

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Speaker 2: Let's let's get our cards on the table here, Corey.

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Speaker 2: What sort of abuse are we talking about here? Look,

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Speaker 2: I don't expect you to include the swear words, which

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Speaker 2: no doubt are part of this, but but what is

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Speaker 2: the level of abuse that has been received by some

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Speaker 2: of your match officials to.

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Speaker 3: Doing a referee to to to get ft or your

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Speaker 3: e F and joking is now seen as relatively low level,

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Speaker 3: of course prosecuted to the full extent of the regulations

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Speaker 3: we can. What we're talking about is comments, and they've

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Speaker 3: got to say that we're seeing a huge increase in

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Speaker 3: severity from from spectators. So the players and the coaches

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Speaker 3: and the management have in general been the best group.

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Speaker 3: Spectators throwaway discussing comments like good luck getting home, I'm

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Speaker 3: going to follow you to the car park, that sort

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Speaker 3: of low level cowardly statements. But the referee I was

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Speaker 3: just talking about who not only volunteers as a refeel

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Speaker 3: volunteers and helping to run the referees Association. So he

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Speaker 3: was shouldered by a player running past, disgruntled with the decision.

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Speaker 3: The next one who was verbally abused and told that

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Speaker 3: he was going to get beaten up as well as

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Speaker 3: being shouldered, and then was hit with a piece of

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Speaker 3: field equipment in the foot. So there's a referee who

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Speaker 3: was going to go out and give up his time,

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Speaker 3: his time away from his far no possibly take time

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Speaker 3: off work, and he's had to suffer that sort of crap, right,

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Speaker 3: So that's the sort a level and what I would

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Speaker 3: say in those instances, I told you there would probably

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Speaker 3: only put us about mid table if we were to

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Speaker 3: do a table of the worst offenses.

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Speaker 2: This is utterly appauling, Cory. This, I mean, I'm not

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Speaker 2: telling you anything you don't already know. This is just horrendous.

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Speaker 2: And the word that you've used a few times a

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Speaker 2: few times there volunteers, not that it matters, not that

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Speaker 2: you should you know, feel that you could abuse someone

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Speaker 2: like Ben O'Keeffe because he's a professional referee, but these

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Speaker 2: are volunteer officials copying the wrath of players and spectators.

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Speaker 2: How do we how do we stop this?

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Speaker 3: So we just need to we we recognize it's one

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Speaker 3: of these situations where you may never ever get rid

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Speaker 3: of it completely. And we're saying this is a million

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Speaker 3: miles apart from from our Oh come on, reef, a right,

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Speaker 3: you're joking, reef, compared to what we're talking about. Right,

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Speaker 3: But what we need is all of community, multifesteded approach

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Speaker 3: where we everybody that has involved in that event can

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Speaker 3: say that's not good enough. You know, there's many things

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Speaker 3: that used to happen in society that used to be

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Speaker 3: seen as oh, well, that's not the end of the world.

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Speaker 3: They are not tolerated today, many many subjects. Right, we

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Speaker 3: just need to be able to all work together as

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Speaker 3: a community. And so identification. Calling out people don't put

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Speaker 3: yourself in a position of danger, but calling out these people,

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Speaker 3: identify them, go to the regulatory bodies, and then the

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Speaker 3: regulatory bodies they need to show some of the paverbials

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Speaker 3: and prosecute these peoples to the full extent that they

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Speaker 3: can big bands showing this is not part of what

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Speaker 3: holds up the pillars of our values and integrity that

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Speaker 3: hold up our sport.

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Speaker 2: You've made a stand as a union. What about the

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Speaker 2: individual clubs Chorea? Are they responsible for the behavior of

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Speaker 2: those connected to their club or is that a bit

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Speaker 2: difficult when a guy might just be wandering by a

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Speaker 2: game of rugby, not necessarily a fan of that of

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Speaker 2: that club or one of the clubs playing just you know,

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Speaker 2: stands on the sideline with no real connection to the club,

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Speaker 2: if you know what I mean. Do the clubs themselves,

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Speaker 2: can they have any responsibility here?

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Speaker 3: Well, you've nowled in one pointed that there is a

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Speaker 3: black hole the randoms we call them the guys that

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Speaker 3: the people sorry, who just turn up to games no

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Speaker 3: real connection, definitely not club members. So for us, that's

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Speaker 3: a general police matter once again, if we get some

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Speaker 3: sort of identification. Rugby in particular is a very small,

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Speaker 3: interconnected game, so we'll be able to find out the

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Speaker 3: people if we can get some details at the starting point.

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Speaker 3: But the clubs are going to say, so, we've got

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Speaker 3: eight clubs. There's no one club that is worse than

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Speaker 3: the other. There's no one standout that is having more

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Speaker 3: horrendous abuse when they do find issues. Our clubs have

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Speaker 3: been fantastic. They self police, We've had we have social

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Speaker 3: media campaigns, they'll go through. They all have codes of

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Speaker 3: conduct and if you're a member of one of our

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Speaker 3: clubs then and you do something where you step out

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Speaker 3: of line, then you're in trouble. So the clubs are

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Speaker 3: doing what they can, but you're right the randoms the

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Speaker 3: general public that has left to us. And then for

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Speaker 3: more severe instances obviously a police matter.

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Speaker 2: Have you got New Zealand Rugby backing? Is there anything

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Speaker 2: the national body can do to help?

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Speaker 3: Said? Engine have been fantastic. We are great support in

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Speaker 3: guidance from them. They've been really really good. They're available

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Speaker 3: for us and have been brilliant and sharing initiatives and

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Speaker 3: Bryce Lawrence in particular and has Cared done a great

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Speaker 3: job in supporting our initiatives but also the initiatives of

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Speaker 3: other pus. They're forever helping and guiding us. So no

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Speaker 3: Engine I have done a great work in this space,

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Speaker 3: and so have the other pus, the other provincial unions

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Speaker 3: all ideas swapping in this of swapping what we can

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Speaker 3: do because there's nobody that wants us to continue, right,

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Speaker 3: or there is maybe one small area of society to

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Speaker 3: think it's okay to do. But besides that, nobody wants us.

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Speaker 3: So it's a real combined approach to try and combat it.

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Speaker 2: You're not You're right. Nobody who is truly invested in

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Speaker 2: sports at a community level, at any level, wants to

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Speaker 2: wants this to be the case. Congratulations Corey on taking

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Speaker 2: some leadership in this space. Inertia is not an option.

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Speaker 2: I love that. Now understand. Actually, there's no no club

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Speaker 2: Rugby this weekend, is that right? The King's birthday? So

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Speaker 2: next weekend is your first chance to kind of I

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Speaker 2: guess test the water on this.

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Speaker 3: Well, you're right, no club Ragby this weekend. Our clubs

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Speaker 3: every season we get together. The clubs set the schedule

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Speaker 3: and the regulations, they set our participation agreement, which is

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Speaker 3: a're so proud of. So it's a real collaborative, consultative approach.

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Speaker 3: And so we have this weekend off. But we actually

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Speaker 3: had a game last Wednesday, Mate, which was in the

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Speaker 3: midst of this has already been released, and we didn't

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Speaker 3: have any issues at all, So I was very proud

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Speaker 3: of that. In fact, we've had feedback already that there

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Speaker 3: were some players on the field that we're making more

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Speaker 3: of an effort to adhere to the to the laws.

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Speaker 3: Once again referring to what I said before, players, coaches

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Speaker 3: and managers are lesser than an issue. But that was

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Speaker 3: great to see that it's already some impact. But yes,

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Speaker 3: you're right. A week today will be a first round

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Speaker 3: of club rugby and then we'll obviously be watching that

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Speaker 3: and hoping that we get through the rest of the

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Speaker 3: season without any further incidents.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well done mate. Well again, congratulations on the stance

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Speaker 2: you've taken. Good to get the chance to chat. I

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Speaker 2: hope the next time we chat we're talking about the

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Speaker 2: next Carlor Spencer or Christian Cullen coming out of your union.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that would be great, Hate Ponty. Can I finish

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Speaker 3: on a positive note if I can, just to shout

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Speaker 3: out to Marlene Kennett, who turned eighty on Thursday. An

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Speaker 3: absolute fantastic lady, My mum, Love you mom, everyster love it.

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Speaker 2: Corey. Great to chat mate, enjoy your long weekend.

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Speaker 3: Cheers Piney, See you mate.

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Speaker 2: See you mate. That is Corey Kennett, CEO of Hollofin

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Speaker 2: mccarpery Rugby Football Union.

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Speaker 1: For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, listen live

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