One of the country's most promising referees, who started his career in the South, is to take up the role as referee education officer in the Otago region.
James Doleman will move to Dunedin for the position while Paul Galland, a New Zealander living in Brisbane, has been appointed as the new player development manager for the Otago Rugby Football Union. Both men will start on February 5.
Galland replaces Tim Colling who left the player development role last month after nine years with the union.
Galland (32) has a background in coaching and is employed at St Peters Lutherans College in Brisbane.
He works at the school as an athletic development co-ordinator as well as head of rugby and head of basketball.
Otago Rugby Football Union general manager Richard Kinley said while Galland brought significant rugby knowledge to the role he also had extensive experience working with young athletes from different backgrounds. He had previously worked in Canada and England.
Doleman started his career as a referee in Dunedin while a university student and has swiftly moved up the ranks.
He is a member of New Zealand Rugby's high performance referee programme and has also officiated on the world sevens circuit.
He is moving to Dunedin from Auckland. Kinley said it was great to get a person like Doleman (26) back to Dunedin, working for the Otago union.
He would be someone Otago referees would be pleased to work with and had shown how far someone can go after starting in Dunedin.
The refereeing education structure is part of a wider review by NZR, which is considering a change in the role.
With the mooted changes, the union employed Jim Thomson in a temporary role. It was only supposed to be for six months but stretched into more than a year.
Thomson had replaced Sheldon Eden-Whaitiri, who had moved to a position with New Zealand Cricket.
The NZR review led to no major changes in the referee education role.
Interviews are taking place this week for the Otago head coaching position but it is uncertain whether a coach will be announced before Christmas.
