Teammates of a teenager killed in Dunedin this week have cancelled a rugby game out of respect for the family.
Trinity Catholic Catholic student Enere McLaren-Taana, 16, died after an attack at Dunedin's bus hub on Thursday afternoon.
On a Facebook post, Otago Community Rugby manager Warren Kearney said Saturday's fixture between the Sassenachs - the Otago combined co-ed schools team - and Dunstan High School had been cancelled in a show of respect to McLaren-Taana's family.
"Otago Rugby's thoughts and prayers are with the family, friends and team-mates of Enere Taana-McLaren.
"In respect of Trinity Catholic College, the Intermediate Otago Combined Sassenachs team will not be playing tomorrow's game against Dunstan High School.
"At times like these, we need to stick together and support each other. Kia kaha."
Meanwhile, a clinical psychologist said the stabbing attack by a teenager was extremely troubling.
It was the latest in a spate of assaults at bus and train stations in the past few months.
Police found a knife at the scene and were investigating the circumstances leading up to the stabbing.
A 13-year-old boy who is accused of his murder appeared at the Youth Court on Friday.
Umbrella Wellbeing chief executive Dougal Sutherland said the apparent involvement of a weapon was shocking and concerning.
Historically, teenagers had fought with their fists and while this was not to be condoned, the use of a weapon was "really, really troubling", he said.
Violent incidents at bus and train stations involving young people did seem to be on the increase, he said, but there was no obvious reason for this trend.
However, those types of incidents rarely happened in isolation, he said.
"There's a lot of contextual implications that need to be taken into account, as well as the developmental level of a [young person].
"A lot of factors will have combined to produce this really terrible and tragic outcome."
Overall, offending by adolescents has decreased in the past decade, but a certain group of teenagers were offending more, Dr Sutherland said.
"For a specific subset of adolescents - those with more pervasive antisocial behaviour present since childhood - rates have increased as they are engaging in more offending behaviour.
"These are likely to be the group who show up in the spikes of offending [such as] ram raids, violent behaviour at bus stops and so on."
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