Clubs to take action on fans who abuse refs

Northland rugby clubs are tired of "referee rage" from their spectators and say it is a blight on the game that must stopped.
At a meeting of the premier grade clubs on Wednesday, club representatives came up with an idea to regulate their own supporters. 
Western Sharks premier coach Myles Ferris was at the meeting and said  all present had agreed enough is enough.
"We want it to stop, that's the clear message from all the clubs, because the referees have had enough ... and we do need to look after our referees who are all volunteers after all."
 "Some people are being abusive and swearing at the referees and that kind of thing has got to stop," Ferris said.
The clubs will begin to monitor the sidelines  and if they don't do a good enough job - and referees will be asked to  comment about spectator ethics on the match report - then they may lose the right to host  games.
Flyers will be distributed around the grounds in the coming weeks to let people know what the new policy is all about.
Referees believed the  abuse  was an attempt at intimidation, NRU referee development officer Kyal Collins said.
 "They think that if they get on the referee's case then next time a 50-50 call comes up, then it might go their team's way." 
He said referees  were beginning to think that refereeing was no longer the fun it used to be.
"That was the aim of the meeting, I had to tell everyone that some of my referees are ready to quit," he said.
Collins and Ferris agreed that acknowledging the problem was a handy place to start.
"We've got to look at our own behaviour as well, we as coaches can't stand on the sideline and criticise them because that sends the wrong message to the supporters too, - we might not always agree with referees but if we have complaints the coaches have a process to get that feeling across," Ferris said.
He said his team were surprised by Marist recently, and some of their supporters had blamed the referee but it wasn't a valid criticism.
"We lost, I could have moaned about a couple of decisions that went against us but a couple went against them too - the ref was doing his best - you can't see everything but what he did do, he did very, very well," he said.
Ferris turned in a positive report for the young referee in charge that day, Duane Wells, feeling he should be encouraged.
"As long as refs rule on what they see, that's all we can ask for - occasionally some referees are influenced by the supporters or players - and that's what you don't want and if the refs get that message it helps them improve as a ref," he said.
 The NRU's Greg Shipton was pleased with the  response. 
"They all dived in and said we want to do something about it. It's all very positive," he said.
He said the whole of the Te Rarawa RFC committee has been summoned to appear before the NRU Judiciary next week to discuss more than one incident involving referee abuse.
The club's U18 team have been banned from playing home games at their home ground at the Ahipara Domain until the judiciary and the club had resolved the matter.