At last ... a Groater hits the big time

By CHRIS RATTUE

"We always knew Cornelius Groat would rule the world one day," a member of this previously unheralded organisation reckoned yesterday.

Cornelius Groat has leapt into prominence as the one rugby element on the CV of new New Zealand Rugby Union chief executive Chris Moller.

The 48-year-old Moller is coy about his life as a Groater, just as he readily admits to a lack of involvement in rugby, apart from being a "serious spectator" who also loves cricket and plays golf.

When Moller, until two months ago the deputy chief executive of food giant Fonterra, was approached by the NZRFU's recruitment agency, he was surprised.

"I assumed they wanted someone with a rugby background," says Moller, who is married to Jill, and has two teenage sons.

Moller's rugby stats go something like this. He's seen about 20 tests over the years, organised his business life so he could get to matches including three or four Super 12 games a season, and was a late-joining foundation member of Wellington's WestpacTrust Stadium organisation.

Raised in Hastings, one of two sons of a doctor father and caregiver mother, Moller was educated as a boarder at Christ's College in Christchurch. He could not, until now, lay claim to any of the rugby fame that has emanated from those two champion rugby places past and present.

But he was a Groater. Cornelius Groat was a character, a fictitious umpire, painted on the wall of a Wellington pub called The Cricketers' Arms.

When members of a social rugby team born in Weir House, a Victoria University hall of residence, happened to be in the pub during the early 1970s considering a team name, they looked up and saw Cornelius.

Groater and Auckland lawyer Greg Walker said yesterday: "We played with heart and passion although the results reflected what had happened on Friday night. Off the field it was all about fun."

Another comrade, Craig Hart from Palmerston North, added: "People say the new man doesn't come from rugby. But Cornelius Groat was the soul of rugby."

Various Groaters remember Moller in various degrees.

Moller describes himself as just as much a Groat spectator as player, and won't even guess at how many times he played for them.

"I think the reason people say I'm not a rugby person is because I've said that myself," he said last night.

"I said that to the recruitment agency and to the NZRFU. I haven't played for the All Blacks or in the Super 12 or NPC, but I'm a serious spectator."

Moller is a serious, university qualified, business character whose CV includes working for the Baring Brothers bank in London, as Fletcher Challenge's London manager, and in top level positions in the dairy industry.

His experience includes helping negotiate Fonterra's South American deal with the world's largest food company, Nestle.

Those around the dairy industry describe Moller as a fanatical worker.

Neville Martin, a former public relations man for the Dairy Board, said Moller was famous for carrying a backup copy of presentations to business leaders.

"He leaves nothing to chance," said Martin.

"He'd carry two sets, just in case he was hit by a meteorite.

"Everyone had huge respect for him, including the staff. He was widely respected through the world for his skills as a negotiator ... he has a razor sharp mind."

Moller doesn't officially start at the NZRFU until January 30, but this week he will make contact with rugby leaders around the world, including John O'Neill, the head of the Australian Rugby Union which has had a rocky relationship with the NZRFU over the World Cup fiasco and Australia's wish to have another Super 12 team.

His immediate major tasks will involve negotiating new deals with adidas and News Ltd, which seems to be a prime reason he has been hired. Moller says others with greater rugby knowledge, including chairman Jock Hobbs, will round out the management team.

Moller gives little, well nothing, away about specific aims and talks the standard fare about things like the importance of rugby to the nation. He wants to talk to people in the game before getting down to the nitty gritty.

On whether New Zealand could host a World Cup, he says: "It would be great, but you'd have to consider the facts and the commercial interests of the game."

Groaters around the country may remember their days of fun off the field. Their old comrade though is now a big player in a rugby world dominated by the dollar.