\u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a no-brainer and I think people are probably surprised this hasn\u2019t been the case all along,\u201d Lancaster said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen an opportunity in recent years that we could be stronger together, work together to promote the game, promote events and get more Kiwis active.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely increases our footprint and something that\u2019s really attractive to us is that, as people\u2019s lifestyles and perceptions around sport continue to change, touch offers something where all generations can be on the same pitch together.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s played in the summer, it\u2019s a non-contact format, so it really broadens our offering as a code. We think this partnership can be mutually beneficial and help touch further solidify its place as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 150,000 people play touch rugby across New Zealand each year, making it one of the country\u2019s most widely played team sports.<\/p>\n
Touch NZ chief executive Joe Sprangers told the Mike Hosking Breakfast formalising the relationship was a natural step.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been working on this for a number of years,\u201d Sprangers said. \u201cIt\u2019s finally reached a point where we\u2019re ready to announce the partnership.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are real opportunities around combining numbers, working together and creating economies of scale.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people would have assumed touch and rugby were already part of the same system, which hasn\u2019t been the case. Now we\u2019re able to bring that together and present it for what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a no-brainer and I think people are probably surprised this hasn\u2019t been the case…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[32613,35132,64,63,13148,327623,1899,17535,3127,327625,3179,26130,327624,760,85,2876,24241,3605,3205],"class_list":["post-679722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-announced","tag-announces","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-form","tag-formally","tag-have","tag-landmark","tag-new","tag-noncontact","tag-official","tag-partnership","tag-recognising","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-summer","tag-touch","tag-with","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679722","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=679722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}