ACT Brumbies winger Andy Muirhead hopes professional athletes lending their support to efforts to stamp out domestic violence will help reinforce the message that it is unacceptable.
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Muirhead was announced as a Domestic Violence Crisis Service champion on Wednesday night, joining Brumbies teammate Christian Lealiifano and former Raiders skipper Alan Tongue as ambassadors.
The Super Rugby rookie, who will start pre-season training on Monday, said strong males needed to lead the way to change an alarming trend in society. The DVCS helps thousands of people and families in Canberra.
"The Brumbies are very against domestic violence and there are a lot of other guys at the club would put their hand up pretty quickly for the cause," Muirhead said.
"It's important to have male role models for situations like this. I sat down with the people from DVCS and went through some statistics that are unfortunately growing.
"That was alarming to me, that the numbers were actually growing in this day and age. It should be going the other way. So I wanted to do some more work in the community and this is really important."
Muirhead will help promote the DVCS work done in the capital to support people and families, and will attend picnics for the women and children's specialist programs as well as working in the Room4Change program.
Muirhead made his Super Rugby debut in the 2017 season, which helped him earn a full-time contract with the Brumbies this year. He played 11 games last season and scored four tries.
The first-year Brumbies players will have an induction day at their University of Canberra base on Friday before the rest of the squad starts training on Monday with a series of fitness tests.
