David Leggat: Measuring Sparc's support in the weight of medals

New Zealand Men's Four (from left) David Eade, Hamish Burson, Simon Watson and Jade Uru. Photo / Christine Cornege

A couple of decades ago, the West Indies arrived with a swagger for a cricket tour of New Zealand.

Early on, their captain, Viv Richards, was asked what he thought of prospects for success in the tests and ODIs.

"I'm not one to count my chickens, but ..." he replied.

He'd slightly mangled the old cliche, but you got the general drift. They were slap bang in the middle of a terrific era of world domination and as such the master batsman had certain expectations.

Shortly after, they were rolled in the third test at Lancaster Park for 100 and beaten by five wickets.

In similar vein, there are certain expectations of New Zealand's rowers in this weekend's finals at the world championships on Lake Karapiro. Yesterday, the first batch of A finals were completed, and New Zealand ended the day with one silver and two bronze medals out of six A finals. That followed the bronze won by Danny McBride in Thursday's adaptive single final.

Throughout the week, as heats were won and strong performances recorded, there was a thread running through the utterances out of the New Zealand camp.

Yes, that's all fine so far, went the common line, but things will only get tougher at the sharp end of the regatta. All good feet-on-the-ground stuff.

There is an end game out of these championships and it's coming in two years in London.

For all the delight at hosting the worlds for only the second time, and the heightening of a desire to perform before their own people, it is the Olympic Games which really matter.

That's what those only mildly interested in the sport remember, and that's what decides funding issues.

Rowing is one of six targeted sports by the Government funding agency Sparc, the others being cycling, swimming, triathlon, athletics and yachting. That means they are viewed as the most likely sources of success on sport's biggest stage.

There are two other categories for funding. Rugby, netball and cricket fit into one group as "sports that matter" to New Zealand, as Sparc put it. Then there are all the rest, who must apply for contestable funding, based on what they've got coming up, and the success is usually determined by how well they present their case.

Taking into account core high-performance investment and other elements such as performance grants and Prime Minister's scholarships, rowing will get between $4.5 million and $5 million in each of the next two years, to follow a similar amount in the past two years.

There are other sports that would give their eye teeth for a quarter of that. Rowing's funding is locked in by dint of their resounding success on the world and Olympic stage over most of the decade.

They will go to Sparc next month to discuss matters financial. A pile of medals in the finals this weekend can't hurt. It might even lead to an increase in the money on offer.

By comparison, British rowing, the other most in-form nation going into finals weekend, have received £26.9 million ($55.1 million) from UK Sport since last year. Different economy, different currency, but the message is the same: do well when it counts and good things can happen.

Britain won two gold, two silver and two bronze medals at the Beijing Olympics; New Zealand bagged one gold, and two bronze. They have been the dominant nations all week, and yesterday Britain won two golds, but no minor medals.

Success usually stems from having good foundations in place. A big two days lie ahead for New Zealand's rowers, possibly in more ways than just the obvious.