December 09, 2021
Reckoning for rugby shaming
New Zealand Rugby and Sport New Zealand board Dr Farah Palmer member says allegations by veteran hooker Te Kura Ngata-Aerengamate won’t be brushed under the carpet.
In a social media post this week the 30-year-old revealed she had a mental health breakdown on tour after years of denigrating comments from Black Ferns coach Glenn Moore, including that she had only been selected to play the guitar.
Dr Palmer says a number of sporting codes are facing controversies over women’s teams and their relationships with their coaches.
“There’s a lot of things going on in high performance professional sport with regards to particularly female athletes, how they feel they are being treated or experiences of sexism, racism, homophobia, fat shaming, all of these things. Inevitably it was going to come up in rugby. It’s an issue we need to address in all of the women’s sport,” she says.
Dr Palmer says the Rugby New Zealand board will decide next week whether the allegations would be included in part of the review now going on into the Black Ferns European tour or be subject to a separate independent review.