The idea is that the agencies work together to back rugby league communities to take the lead on key education, and health and safety issues in a way that works for them.
With 40,000 players and an estimated 140,000 supporters across the country, New Zealand Rugby League is seen to have the relationships and influence to help bring about positive change in its communities.
“We are also launching a sideline campaign called Be a Sport, and that will work with the Ease Up campaign that is aimed at alcohol- and smoke-free sidelines,” Kirsty Sharp said.
“Be a Sport is delivered by team supporters themselves. Clubs appoint team champions who manage their supporters’ behaviour.
“It’s an initiative that has come out of Auckland Rugby League. They’ve been running it for a couple of years, and the New Zealand Rugby League is looking to launch it nationally.”
Making players better menLast night’s presentation from Vic Tamati was aimed at making league players “better men”, while the coaching and management messages from Gary Peacham were going towards making them better league players, she said.
The two were seen as complementary.
Tamati was a useful league player, himself. As a youngster he played in Auckland, and later played for the Eastern Suburbs club in Christchurch.
“We were always nipping at Auckland’s heels,” he said.
But it is for his championing of the It’s Not OK message that he is better known.
He has told his own story many times: of how the violence visited on him by his Samoan churchgoing father, was repeated — without some of the more extreme elements — on his own six children; of how his wife took the children away to keep them safe; and of the pivotal moment when his eight-year-old daughter took responsibility for his violence by apologising for not listening (he had beaten her with the sole of a platform shoe for not going to school).
His wife had taken the children to Women’s Refuge and had brought them back to have one-on-one talks with their father.
It turned him around. He attended a stop-violence course in Christchurch where he was armed with the tools to control his anger, and since 2007 he has been telling his story and helping others to turn their lives around.
Peacham is originally from Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and played in the Super League for Hull FC and London Broncos.
He came to New Zealand as an 18-year-old in 2003 — he has family here — and tried unsuccessfully to break into New Zealand professional league and rugby.
Back in the UK, he signed for London Broncos, and studied physical education in the community, and sport science.
In 2008 he came back to New Zealand, this time with wife Rachel, and worked for Sport Waikato until he was shoulder-tapped for a rugby league development role based in Auckland.
“A lot of behind-the-scenes work goes into the running of a club, and the people doing those jobs are usually female,” Peacham said.
He wanted to encourage those doing these jobs to work towards formal accreditation. It was all about creating better people within the clubs.
The other side of his role was working with the coaches, advising on skill development and player-related issues such as managing return from injury.
