Avalon Wolves Rugby Football Club

𝓯𝓲𝓷𝓪𝓵𝓼 𝓯𝓸𝓸𝓽𝔂

Giorgio Bower 🖤

: God and family are the two key elements that the Bower family of Taita in Lower Hutt, Wellington, build their lives around.

These values were central to the upbringing of current All Black George Bower, something his family believes has kept the eldest sibling ticking.

🔗Read Iliesa Tora's full story, linked below.

Our Referees are also volunteers, they give up their time on the weekends to be there for us. Without our referees, we would not be able to play our games. Keep it clean on our sidelines and our fields. We have to be better. The future of grassroots sport depends on it 💙💜

𝙒𝙍𝙍𝘼 𝙈𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙖 𝙎𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙤𝙣 𝙍𝙚𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙚 𝘼𝙗𝙪𝙨𝙚:

The President and Chair of the Wellington Rugby Referees Association (WRRA), Ben Van Berkel, confirms that the Executive Committee of the WRRA has decided to not appoint referees to any grade for a weekend of 10-12 July. We had previously advised the WRFU of our intent to not appoint referees if referee abuse continued to occur and following three more referee abuse incidents on Saturday, no referees will be appointed next weekend.

Van Berkel noted that this season already, we have had 19 reported incidents of verbal abuse towards referees, which is not acceptable to his association. He also pointed out that the abuse has occurred across junior club rugby, secondary schools’ rugby and senior club rugby, not all reports have come from within the referees, with some being submitted by members of the public and the abuse has
come from players, club and school volunteers and spectators.

“The WRRA continues, and will continue, to support Wellington Rugby but we have a duty and obligation to support and protect our members first and foremost” Van Berkel says. He reiterates that this decision by the Executive Committee was not made lightly, but given the widespread nature of this continued abuse, we believe all reasonable options have been exhausted and need to take this stand to support and protect our members.

The WRRA has advised Tony Giles, CEO of the Wellington Rugby Football Union, of their decision and looks forward to working closely with him regarding this issue.

Your Premier Men
v Marist St Pats
Evans Bay Park @ 2:45