KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) was unlikely to push for a new, more accessible site for the national rugby museum, currently in Palmerston North, a senior official said.
A review on the future of the museum should be completed this year.
There are concerns the NZRU was keen to have memorabilia and exhibits advantageously displayed when New Zealand hosts the 2011 World Cup.
The museum is an associate member of the NZRU, which this year increased its grant to the museum from $25,000 to $30,000 and contributed $10,000 for computerised archiving.
The museum contains New Zealand's most comprehensive collection of rugby memorabilia and records, including some of the world's rarest rugby artefacts.
NZRU communications manager Brian Finn told the Manawatu Evening Standard newspaper the review is "timely for us", although he didn't link it to the world cup.
Finn did not expect the rugby union to push for the museum to move.
"It's not for the NZRU at all to dictate where the rugby museum should be."
Finn said the review will look at how the museum and the NZRU work together.
The scope of the review was yet to be determined, but would also involve evaluating the NZRU's website.
Museum chairman Clive Akers suggested Palmerston North had no cause for panic and he didn't want to imagine taking the museum away from Manawatu.
Akers wants to see the rugby museum move from Arena Manawatu's Cuba Street frontage to the central city Te Manawa complex while retaining its own identity.
"I'm confident that the (city) council is keen to retain the museum and have it enhanced at Te Manawa," he said.
- NZPA
