Chiefs players celebrate Kaylum Boshier’s try against the Fijian Drua. Photo / Photosport
Chiefs players celebrate Kaylum Boshier’s try against the Fijian Drua. Photo / Photosport
New Zealand rugby has never enjoyed universal approval from Kiwis over how the game’s being run.
Now, as Gregor Paul has detailed in the Herald, we’ve got the surreal situation where the provincial unions, which have always had ultimate power at the ballot box, are being asked to fullyhand over control. If ever there was a case of asking turkeys to vote for Christmas, this is it.
It’s always been slightly bemusing that in New Zealand, where there are so many successful business leaders who also love rugby, more titans of industry and commerce haven’t been persuaded to help run the sport.
The trick is that picking the men and women to take charge is fraught, whether they come from years on a provincial union’s management committee, or straight out of a major company.
It’s naive thinking to believe that years of experience in business automatically makes someone a brilliant sports administrator. Ask shareholders in Fletcher Building or Mainzeal how delighted they were with board members as the net losses (for Fletchers) or court cases (with Mainzeal) started to stack up.
The last real revolution at New Zealand Rugby was in 2002, after the International Rugby Board stripped New Zealand of co-hosting rights with Australia for the 2003 World Cup.
The fallout was massive. Chairman Murray McCaw and chief executive David Rutherford resigned their posts. The public wanted more blood letting. The chairmen of New Zealand’s provincial rugby unions thought the same. They demanded all NZR board members resign. They did. An entirely new board was elected.
The drama now is being fought largely behind closed doors. If you love rugby, cling to the hope that the resolution sees astute men and women at the helm, and as few people as possible left nursing grievances.
One of rugby’s ironies is that in the middle of the furore over the game’s future, Super Rugby Pasific has provided some highly entertaining games.
Many of us have believed for years that, to get a feel of what life was like in the Stone Age, all you needed to do was take a visit to a meeting of World Rugby.
But astonishingly, there are signs the rules changes that have led to the quicker, more entertaining footy we’ve been seeing in Super Rugby may spread worldwide.
It’s not all locked in, but reports out of England suggest there will be a host of changes, from introducing the 20-minute red card, to speeding up scrums and lineouts, to limiting the number of times water carriers can run on to the field to slow things down for tubby, puffing forwards.
There’s even hope that wholesale tactical substitutions, which have led to the obscenity of seven forwards waddling on at halftime, might be banned. It’s been suggested that World Rugby chairman Bill Beaumont is in favour of returning the game to the athletes who can run for 80 minutes, rather than allowing the 40-minute weightlifters to have their way.
I’ll believe it all when I see it, but even the hint of major modifications is heartening.
An exception has usually been the games between the Blues and the Crusaders. In March, 2020, the Crusaders came to Eden Park for a round robin game and there was a sell-out crowd of 43,236 people.
There’s actually tradition there, that dates back to the breathtaking 1998 final at Eden Park, when the Crusaders, who were such rank outsiders that when they found themselves leading 3-0 at halftime, their captain, Todd Blackadder, told his excited players: “We can win this. We’re playing like shit, and we still won the first half.” They did eventually take the game and the title, 20-13, and a great rivalry began.
Todd Blackadder and the Canterbury Crusaders take a tour of Eden Park after the 1998 Super 12 rugby final. Photo / Geoff Dale
Given the travails of the Crusaders this year, it’ll be fascinating to see how many fans go to Eden Park this Saturday night for the match with the Blues.
Holding the line
At a time when club rugby is, to put it mildly, struggling, it’s a pleasure to note the Ponsonby club will celebrate its 150th anniversary during Easter weekend.
There’ll be a dinner at Eden Park, with World Cup-winning coach, Sir Graham Henry, Black Ferns who have each been in four World Cup winning teams, Anna Richards and Monalisa Urquhart, and All Blacks great Ian Kirkpatrick all speaking. There’s a golf day on Thursday, a junior players’ festival on Good Friday, and a pig on a spit and music at the clubrooms at Western Springs on Sunday.
Ponsonby has always been multicultural and inclusive, taking the lead from its most famous son, Sir Bryan Williams, whose gifts as an all-time great All Black are matched off the field by his decency, work ethic, and thoughtfulness.
