Police fear violence if All Blacks fail to win

WORLD CUP NEWS:NEW ZEALAND police are preparing to deal with a spike in violence if runaway favourites the All Blacks fail to win next year's World Cup on home soil.

Police had been "horrified" by statistics that showed an 80 per cent increase in reported domestic violence cases following a Scottish Cup football final between Celtic and Rangers.

"The potential . . . the All Blacks will lose has entered into our risk management but we've been dealing with it very clearly because we don't want to be seen planning for that to occur," police commissioner Howard Broad said.

Police have been working with Women's Refuge, an organisation to protect women from abuse, the paper said.

Reports of "disorderly and violent offending" had been found to increase slightly in the cities where tests had been held but had not been found to increase on a national level.

"Rightly or wrongly I took from that that we're not as fanatical about rugby as I thought we were," police superintendent Grant O'Fee said.

New Zealand will host the World Cup from September 9th to October 23rd.

Elsewhere, South Africa's famous Springbok emblem will be missing from the front of the national-team jersey at next year's World Cup.

Instead it will be moved to the left sleeve after the South African Rugby Union failed in its bid to keep the logo where it has been in recent years.

The move, though, will just be a temporary one that will take effect for all International Rugby Board (IRB) events, which require their own logo to be placed on the front of jerseys.

"The decision was very straightforward in the end as our attempts to find a place for the Springbok on the front of the jersey failed to find favour," said Dr Jan Marais, chairman of the SARU executive council.

"We were left with no choice and the important point to note is that this application will only be for IRB World Cup events."

The emblem is one of the most famous in world rugby and had already been move to the right of the jersey in recent years to accommodate the country's general sport symbol, the king Protea, which now sits on the left.

Dr Marais explained that a maximum of three marks are allowed on the front of a team jersey at IRB World Cup events: a nation's national emblem (on the left breast), the event mark (right breast) and the logo of the apparel sponsor (centre).

He added: "The IRB's regulations and those of the National Colours Act are both clear and, although we held discussions to look at options, the cleanest solution was to put the Springbok on the sleeve on its own."