With the women's Rugby World Cup coming to Whangārei in just 14 months' time, the Northland Rugby Union has made its women's rugby development manager Scott Collins redundant - citing Covid-19's financial impact.
Collins, who started in the role in 2017, had his last day on Friday as one of two redundancies at the union. NRU chief executive Cameron Bell would not confirm who the other redundancy was as it hadn't been finalised.
"Obviously I was gutted to lose my job, but it was more the effect it would have on the women's game itself, that was one of the main concerns," Collins said.
By disestablishing Collins' role as well as the women's academy manager role, the NRU now had no staff designated to women's rugby. However, its four sub-union community rugby managers now had a larger focus on providing for all groups of players.
Tasked with restarting Northland women's rugby, Collins was faced with the challenge of repairing the poor relationships between the union and its players after the roughly four-year absence of a formal women's competition.
"It's been a battle, that's for sure. It was a lot of listening to [players] first of all and then asking, 'how do we make it better this time'," he said.
"Once a few barriers were broken down and things started to get out there on the field, then that's when it started to take off a bit more."
In 2018, Collins co-ordinated an informal women's club 10s competition before introducing a formal 15s version last year, alongside under-15 and under-18 competitions.
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While the senior competition was plagued by defaults, injuries and overblown scorelines, it was never meant to be held in 2019 as initial plans identified 2020 as a more appropriate year to formalise Northland's women's rugby competitions.
Collins, who championed the 2019 competition start, said formal women's rugby competitions might not have started in Northland until 2022 had they stuck to the original date - given the impact of Covid-19.
"In hindsight, if we didn't [start in 2019] we probably wouldn't be playing now and we'd probably have to wait until next year, and even then that might have been a push leading into a World Cup year."
The bold move to start in 2019 paid off. Northland entered its maiden team, the Kauri, in the Farah Palmer Cup competition last year and after four straight wins, finished third overall in the championship behind Otago and Hawke's Bay.
This year's senior club competition features five teams, two fewer than last year. However, no games had been defaulted after three rounds.
Collins was hopeful the union could deliver a quality product for Northland's female rugby players without his role.
"I'd like to think that [NRU] will do a great job with it, so that's all you can hope.
"Hopefully the community will get in behind it a bit more now and keep it alive because they can see what it can provide the wāhine around here."
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Advertise with NZME.Collins said he would still operate in Northland women's rugby where possible as a volunteer.
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Northland women's rugby stalwart and Otamatea Hawks player Bron "Horse" Hames said losing Collins would be a big loss for the wider rugby community.
"Yeah I'm devastated for Scotty, to be honest. Still can't believe they let him go."
Kauri head coach and Kaikohe women's team coach Cheryl Smith said it was disappointing to see Collins go and hoped it wouldn't negatively impact Northland women's rugby.
"In my eyes, he got the Farah Palmer Cup team where it is so we can't take that away from him."
Given the success of the Kauri in their first year of the domestic women's rugby competition, Smith said it was more important than ever to support the region's women's rugby community to continue the good work from last year.
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In May, speculation swirled that the Kauri were to be cut from the Farah Palmer Cup as New Zealand Rugby considered downsizing the competition for financial reasons. Fortunately, the full 13-team competition was confirmed and will start in August.
Bell, who took over as NRU chief executive in March, said the difficult decision to make Collins redundant was due to the financial strains imposed by Covid-19.
"... I have no joy or satisfaction in letting Scott go. If it wasn't for Covid-19, I wouldn't have made the change," he said.
"In terms of the development of the women's game, Scotty did a hell of a lot in terms of building it back up and getting it going."
Bell emphasised the decisions had been made fairly and with extensive consultation.
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Bell said the work assigned to Collins' role - the running of competitions, age-group programmes and development days - would be spread across the remaining staff.
Asked whether sacrifices had been made in the men's rugby programme, Bell said budgets had been slashed, discretionary income had been frozen and some salaries had been reduced.
Bell said the financial toll of Covid-19 had been "very real" for the union, missing out on two months of funding from the Oxford Sports Trust. In the first three months of 2020, the NRU received $201,458 from the charitable trust.
Bell said he was confident the union could deliver the same quality of service to its women's age-group, club and Farah Palmer Cup players in Collins' absence.
Bell was open to bringing someone back into the role in the future but would weigh up needs in other areas. Currently, the NRU didn't have staff designated to Māori or under-18 development.
