A prominent North Otago club coach has been banned for six weeks for verbal abuse of a referee.
Valley premier coach Nathan Cunningham served the first week of his suspension at the weekend, when his side gained its first win of the season, against Maheno.
He is not allowed to interact with the team at its training on Tuesdays and Thursdays nor coach from the sideline on Saturdays until his suspension ends on June 2.
Cunningham, a former long-serving Valley and North Otago midfielder, declined to comment yesterday.
He faced the North Otago club judiciary on Thursday night after allegedly abusing referee Christopher O'Malley following the Citizens Shield game between Valley and Athletic Marist in Oamaru on April 11.
North Otago Rugby Football Union chief executive Colin Jackson said both the judiciary and the Valley club had been ''very proactive'' in dealing with the incident.
''Referee recruitment is difficult enough without this sort of thing,'' Jackson said.
''The simple message is that everybody needs to treat our match officials with the respect they are entitled to.''
Valley spokesman Don Roney said the club had also handled the incident internally.
''We're not happy that it's happened. We don't condone this sort of thing,'' Roney said.
''We support Nathan as a Valley man but we don't want to see this sort of thing happening. He's stuffed up, and he knows it.''
