First time female president for Hawke’s Bay Rugby Union

Mavis Mullins pictured in 2017, when she became the first female member of a Hawke's Rugby Union management committee or board. She's now the first female president, and possibly the first HBRU president from Dannevirke's Aotea Sports Club. Photo / Warren Buckland

The Hawke’s Bay Rugby Union has its first female president at a time when the sport is trying to work out how to capitalise on the Black Ferns’ triumphant Women’s Rugby World Cup success last year.

Mavis Mullins, the Dannevirke businesswoman who became the union’s first female board member in 2017, takes on a three-year appointment which was confirmed at the union’s 139th annual meeting on March 2.

Nominated by her own Paewai-whānau Aotea club, she succeeds Clive stalwart Neil Pulford.

While Dannevirke is understood to have had Hawke’s Bay union presidents in the days when the position rotated around sub-unions, it appears there had been none from Aotea, she said after the appointment, which was made without any other nominations.

In 2017, she stood for election to the board, but after being beaten in a tightly contested vote, she was appointed to the board as one of its co-opted directors, which are generally appointed relative to business acumen and expertise.

She told Hawke’s Bay Today that she is particularly concerned about developing women’s rugby in Hawke’s Bay, after the success of the Tui representative team’s Division 2 triumph last year, and now the squad’s looming affray with the first division giants, at a time when the union still struggles to have more than four teams at the senior women’s level.

The union’s annual report highlighted the continued challenges of running professional and community sport, not to mention the amateur sport community specifically where all sports were challenged throughout New Zealand, especially amid the restrictions in place at times since the advent of the first Covid-19 lockdowns just as the season was about to begin in 2020.

A now-invested grant of $1 million from the New Zealand Rugby Union, sourced from its share arrangement with investor Silver Lakes, was prominent in the union’s increase in revenue to just over $6 million last year and a net surplus (after disbursements to clubs) totalling $1,078,178.

Losing the Ranfurly Shield during the season and missing out on a semifinal place in the men’s National Provincial had been the key factors in game income dwindling by almost a third, from $951,095 to $626,237.

Union CEO Jay Campbell says the $1 million currently sits in a fund “for a rainy day”, and the are union testing the times and environment with the hope that interest attracted by the fund can, in future, be dispersed annually among clubs.

Meanwhile, the union is preparing for a new season to help Hawke’s Bay get back to some sense of normality after the devastation caused by Cyclone Gabrielle, and Premier club rugby is set to begin on the weekend of March 25 - 26, with other Senior and Colts grades to start a week later.

Hawke’s Bay has been allocated a Ranfurly Shield challenge against Wellington, which claimed the trophy in a Magpies defence last winter at McLean Park.

It will only be a shield match if Wellington retains the shield through to the teams’ NPC match in Wellington, but the date is not yet clear with the NPC schedule still to be announced, as the NZRU balances the rounds with the unavailability of some major grounds nationwide during the FIFA Women’s World Cup football in August.

The board chairman - at least until the first meeting in the new term - remains Napier shearing contractor and businessman Brendan Mahony, while the annual meeting bestowed life membership on former chairman and New Zealand Rugby Union board member and Napier lawyer, Steve Lunn, after more than 50 years involvement at most levels, including playing and refereeing.