Two junior rugby league teams involved in "sickening violence" at Jack Woolaston Oval last month have been "stood down from playing" pending the outcome of a NSW Rugby League investigation into the unsavoury incident.
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In a since-deleted Facebook post last month, North Tamworth announced that they had barred the Bears' under-14 and under-15 sides from training and playing at Jack Woolaston Oval for the rest of the season after a "disgusting" melee involving Norths and Manilla juniors and adult spectators at the ground last month.
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"More concerning was the behaviour of adults who both verbally encouraged this player violence and assault to occur and then actually entered the field of play and perpetrated acts of violence and assault on the field," the club said.
Stood down are the North Tamworth and Manilla Black sides who play in the Group 4 Junior Rugby League's combined under-15 and under-16 competition.
On Thursday, the NSWRL exclusively revealed to the Leader that it "is continuing to work through the identification of all potential person/s who are in breach, with the assistance of both clubs, as well as gathering further information from those in attendance at the venue on the day."
It added: "We have zero tolerance for behaviour that threatens the safety of participants, officials and spectators and incidents like these are contrary to the standards of any community sport.
"We have a duty to eradicate this sort of behaviour from our game so that those who play and/or attend community sport can enjoy it and do so without any concerns or fears."
In the now-deleted Facebook post, Norths said "members of the North Tamworth Bears committee and Group 4 representatives fully witnessed this shocking and sickening behaviour[,] along with the Group 4 Referees [sic] who we understand have made a full report."
Norths had called on Bears supporters to remove from social media any videos of the "violence and assault".
"We understand that Group 4 and the referees will use as much video footage as possible to process potential charges or bans from the game," it said.
"We ask that if such video footage does exist that it be taken down from the public domain and forwarded to Group 4 as a sign of goodwill that the individual perpetrators are identified and dealt with appropriately."
Group 4 Junior Rugby League president Peter Lennox has said of the incident: "At the end of the day, it was kids playing football - and things get a little bit out of hand."
The president of Norths juniors, Nicholas Hodgson, has declined to comment.
"Please don't contact anyone else from the club regarding this matter," he said.
Manilla juniors were contacted for comment.
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