New Zealand Rugby has apologised to the victims of former Wellington player Losi Filipo who was discharged from court without conviction after assaulting four people in central Wellington in October last year.
Speaking with One News, NZ Rugby general manager Neil Sorensen says he has been in touch with the families of the victims.
"Basically what I said to Kim and Karen [parents of two victims] is sorry - sorry they've had go through this mess, sorry that rugby's put them in this situation," Sorensen told One News.
When asked why New Zealand Rugby only acted after the recent public outcry, Sorensen said "Look, it's a good question. We've only known about it for a few days to be honest."
Sorensen admitted that New Zealand Rugby should have been more aware.
"We weren't aware of the actual details, the severity of the case. And that's the key here.
"That's the lesson that we've learned. If we'd gone and learned the details of the case I think we would've acted. In fact we would've acted. We should've acted three weeks, we should've acted two months ago".
He stressed once again, "We should've known the details, the severity of the situation before standing by Losi in the first place."
"When we found out the gory details, it just wasn't good enough, we couldn't stand by him after that."
Finally Sorensen acknowledged that their efforts were simply not good enough.
"We've got a whole community that's frowning upon rugby at the moment and that's just not good enough. We just need to be better, we need to learn from this and be better.
"The key thing I said to the parents is how can we do things better, it's just not good enough."