{"id":159969,"date":"2025-09-22T01:17:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T01:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/159969\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T01:17:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T01:17:12","slug":"referees-allegedly-assaulted-at-canberra-rugby-7s-game-including-with-coward-punch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/159969\/","title":{"rendered":"Referees allegedly assaulted at Canberra Rugby 7s game, including with ‘coward’ punch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Southwell<\/p>\n

The alleged double assault took place during a Rugby 7s game at Southwell Park in Lyneham on Sunday. Photo: Tim Gavel.<\/p>\n

Two referees were allegedly attacked by a father and son pair from Western Sydney during a Rugby 7s competition in Canberra on the weekend, including one who was hit from behind in a \u2018coward\u2019 punch.<\/p>\n

The incident took place during the junior Rugby 7s tournament held at the Southwell Park playing fields in Lyneham around 3 pm on Sunday (21 September), an ACT Policing spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

It is alleged an 18-year-old man and his 42-year-old father, both from Fairfield in NSW, entered the playing fields before the son assaulted one referee.<\/p>\n

When a second referee tried to help the first, the father allegedly \u2018coward\u2019 punched the second from behind.<\/p>\n

This referee was allegedly knocked unconscious and taken to hospital.<\/p>\n

Police arrived and spoke to witnesses, who directed them towards the 18-year-old. He was arrested while he allegedly tried to leave the scene.<\/p>\n

The father was arrested late on Sunday night when he went to the City Police Station.<\/p>\n

Both men were charged with assault and are scheduled to face the ACT Magistrates Court in November.<\/p>\n

Rugby 7s is played in two seven-minute halves with seven players in each team.<\/p>\n

The police spokesperson said anyone who has video footage of the incident in Lyneham (who has not already spoken to police) is asked to contact Crime Stoppers<\/a>, quoting reference 8167629.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The alleged double assault took place during a Rugby 7s game at Southwell Park in Lyneham on Sunday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-159969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}