Rugby for the vaccinated and unvaccinated

New Zealand Rugby says there is space in the game for both vaccinated and unvaccinated players to play club rugby this season.

Photo: Photosport

NZR’s head of community rugby Steve Lancaster said it was “complex” to figure out how rugby could be played under different government restrictions but the sport wanted to be welcoming while adhering to gathering limits at a Red Light setting.

“If you don’t have a Covid vaccine certificate you won’t be able to register to play 15-a-side rugby this year but the important nuance in this is that you can still play 10-a-side or seven-a-side rugby.

“One of our values as a sport is to be welcoming and we want to be really clear that we’re not closing our doors to anyone.”

All coaches of 15-a-side and 10-a-side teams would be required to be vaccinated.

Children aged under 12 years and 3 months, playing Small Blacks rugby, did not need to be vaccinated to play any form of the game.

NZR was pushing for more players to get registered ahead of the winter season – especially if they needed to play in the 10-a-side and sevens competitions.

Lancaster said any participant could upload their My Vaccine Pass during the registration process to alert clubs of their status.

“The key thing for us is to get our players and coaches registered now so that we understand the profile of our participant base and then decisions can be made at the local level about what formats and what competitions to offer to those participants.”

Lancaster was aware player numbers could drop this season.

“We’re realistic about the times we are living in, people have got a lot of concerns and a lot of things to weigh up and different factors will influence different people’s decisions, so we’re realistic about what that will mean for participation numbers but our endeavour is to ensure everyone that wants to play rugby can.”

And it was not just individual players that had expressed concerns.

“We are hearing some anxiety from our club network on this season will play out and largely that is around the uncertainty of all of this, which is why we are moving to provide as much certainty as we can at this point in time,” Lancaster said.

Trainings and access to clubrooms will be governed by the government’s gathering limits for vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

“We’re taking a very non-emotive approach to this and we are simply interpreting and understanding the government’s framework and then applying it to game across it’s different formats.”