Sevuloni Lasei Reece, a Waikato winger and second-highest points scorer in the Mitre 10 Cup so far this year, will get to take up his contract with Irish club Connacht in November as planned.
Reece (21) was handed the discharge without conviction by Judge Denise Clark in the Hamilton District Court today.
Judge Clark said a conviction would have ended the Fijian-born player's Irish contract and that would have been out of all proportion to the gravity of the offending.
The court heard that early on July 1, a heavily intoxicated Reece got into an argument with his partner of two years in the Hamilton central business district.
Reece yelled at his partner to "shut up, in much more colourful language than that", and chased her down the street, dragging her to the ground.
She suffered bruising to the side of her face and waist and bleeding to her knee.
