KEY POINTS:
Rowing New Zealand boss Bill Falconer is puzzled at the mutterings that all must not be well in his sport.
He argues one of New Zealand's most successful sports is in good shape.
Several recent events have conspired to raise eyebrows, and joining the dots has led some
to conclude there are problems in the national skiff.
A year ago, chief executive Craig Ross parted company with RNZ and has not been replaced, the job currently in the hands of acting chief executive Luke van Velthooven.
One of the country's leading coaches, Chris Nilsson, has resigned to become chief coach at England's Cambridge University; high performance manager Andrew Matheson resigned after the Beijing Olympics to take up the same role at Rowing Australia; and five of the 16 rowers at Beijing have packed it in.
The combination of those elements, set alongside the impending arrival of the 2010 world championships at Karapiro, has raised the volume on the doom and gloom dial.
However Falconer, RNZ's chairman, insists all is well. Having advertised the chief executive's job once and been unable to settle on the right candidate, the feelers have gone out again. The parameters have not changed.
"They are much the same as we have always seen them, and pretty common with most sports," Falconer said.
"The remarkable thing is we went through all last year without a CEO and without missing a beat. That is attributable to a lot of people working a lot harder.
"We thought we had one on a couple of occasions but, unfortunately, it didn't come to pass.
"There were things we couldn't do because we didn't have a CEO, but nothing serious slipped down the cracks in that period. We did well, and we're in good shape."
One sticking point for prospective chief executives might be having to be based at Karapiro, where RNZ has its high performance headquarters.
It may not necessarily be a dealbreaker if RNZ believe they've found their person, but it's highly desirable.
"Any organisation needs its leader on site. We've got six fulltime staff, four fulltime coaches and they like to know the boss is there," Falconer said.
He was reluctant to talk hypotheticals - "we don't want to say 'here's the rules on that'. It's a question of how far away they live and what ease of access to Karapiro would be. And we could only evaluate that in terms of the circumstances."
He pointed out the job involved plenty of travel and time away from Karapiro.
Van Velthooven is a successful businessman in Blenheim and is overseeing RNZ's strategic plan until the London Olympics in 2012.
RNZ's preference had always been to appoint someone from within the sport, "but that is not cast in stone".
Coxless pair bronze medallist George Bridgewater is off to Oxford University; Nicky Coles, a former world champion with Juliette Haigh in the coxless pair, has retired; Rob Waddell has returned to Team New Zealand; and double Olympic champions Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell have retired.
"I'm not certain a CEO would have made any difference to those decisions, and Andrew [Matheson] had a career opportunity to go to Australia and you can understand him taking that," Falconer said.
Matheson's job is being filled on a temporary basis by Judith Hamilton but Falconer expects a decision on that job to be made within three weeks.
He pointed out that the elite summer squad will not assemble until November 3, and is confident there is time to put key components in place before the next international campaign starts around May.
