Rugby: Culture report to be known next year

New Zealand Rugby CEO Steve Tew.

The investigation of the culture inside New Zealand rugby is expected to be finished early next year, with the review's heavyweight panel holding its first meeting last week.

In a season which saw the national game hammered by a number of high-profile scandals - including the Chiefs' strippergate, the Losi Filipo assault case and Aaron Smith's toilet tryst - New Zealand Rugby is under pressure to repair the sport's battered image and improve basic values such as respect and responsibility.

NZR chief executive Steve Tew has revealed the nine-person panel charged with independently reviewing the culture inside his organisation held their first meeting last week and a draft report is expected around March-April.

The panel is chaired by New Zealand Law Society president and employment lawyer Kathryn Beck and also includes former All Blacks greats Michael Jones and Keven Mealamu, former World Anti-Doping Agency head David Howman, double Olympic canoeing champion Lisa Carrington, former All Blacks doctor Deb Robinson, New Zealand Cricket and Hurricanes board member Liz Dawson, Sport New Zealand board member and former netball administrator Jackie Barron, and HR and communications executive Kate Daly.

In an interview with Newstalk ZB's Tony Veitch, Tew refused to describe 2016 as the worst year for NZR off the field, but said "it's been a tough old year, but I don't sit back and rate them, best to worst".

One of the primary objectives of the panel is to examine New Zealand Rugby's treatment of, and attitudes towards, women.

The sporting body has never had a female board member in its 124-year history.

"We've got a lot of high-profile New Zealanders there. They'll meet three or four times between now and the draft report, being due some time around March-April next year. But if they want longer, we'll give it to them," Tew said.

"We're in their hands, we're very grateful they've put their time and reputations on the line to help us. We're looking forward to learning their view of what we're doing and what affects us that comes from society and how we can deal with it.

"I think there'll be some good things for the whole country to listen to."

Tew said the year wasn't all bad, citing good participation numbers, good growth in the women's game and how every season is "challenging".

However, while the action on the field has largely been excellent, it has been overshadowed by a string of off-field embarrassments.

Tew says he wants to look at it as an "opportunity".

"Nothing's sacrosanct and we're going to co-operate fully with that group and hopefully, we're going to learn some lessons."

Asked to go through each of Kiwi rugby's scandals of 2016, Tew said "that would be a very long interview".

"If you come back to the Chiefs thing, clearly the first mistake was our players made a poor decision to hire a stripper.

"We probably underestimated peoples' response to the fact we conducted the investigation - I think very well - but on our own, we didn't bring anyone in independent which would have given it more validity," he said.

"And in the [Losi] Filipo case, I'm not sure what else we could have done, frankly.

"That assault happened when the kid was still at school and Wellington had employed him I think in good faith on a contract because the justice system had dispensed their justice, and he was a free citizen to carry on working in our environment.

"Clearly we underestimated the response that the victims of that particular instance would have and it took us a bit of time to catch up.

"We're sorry we've upset some people in that regard and we'll learn from it."