Bay of Plenty Rugby has had enough.

'In 2015, we had a marked increase in referee abuse reports and a number of ugly incidents involving spectators invading the field during games to join in with melees,” says the union's operations manager Neil Alton.

Bay of Plenty Rugby Union operations manager Neil Alton. Photo: File

In an attempt to curb this behaviour, the union has come up with a series of measures.

These include supplying information to each group of participants about what is and isn't acceptable on and around the rugby field.

The union website spells out this information and contains an electronic form to register complaints about bad behaviour.

In addition each game at all levels will have a technical zone, restricting movements of reserves, coaches and managers of playing teams.

Referee Manager Pat Rae helped implement of these strategies.

'The biggest obstacle to getting people to swap their mouthguard for a whistle is abuse,” says Pat.

'Creating technical zones like what's in place in matches on television removes coaches and reserves who roam up and down the sidelines, yelling instructions at their players.

'When a decision goes against them, all of a sudden, those same people are now directing their frustration at my referees and spectators join in.”

As a result of escalating abuse referee numbers have been declining in recent years.

The Bay of Plenty Union wants to make the local club and school grounds a more attractive place for players, coaches, referees and supporters to be at from information on how to behave to creating technical zones at games.

A technical zone is a visibly marked rectangle, located in line with each 10 metre line, on one side of the field.

These are the only places where the reserves, coaches and managers of the two teams can be during their match.

'In an attempt to curb this [bad] behaviour, these measures have been implemented to not only educate our stakeholders on what is and isn't acceptable behaviour, but to also place the onus back onto the clubs and schools involved.

"[This is] to ensure they have adequate crowd control and event managers in place to control the behaviour of their members and supporters,” says Neil.

For more information visit: www.boprugby.co.nz/community-rugby/positive-rugby-environment/