Union paying for its amateurish approach

By WYNNE GRAY

After David Rutherford hired a new group of New Zealand Rugby Union executives midway through last year, I questioned him about the direction he would take in his role as chief executive.

His response was that he would have more time to connect with the grassroots of the game in New Zealand and to "strategise" about the sport.

On the evidence of the World Cup schemozzle, he has not achieved either task with much aplomb.

All the union has left is a list of desperation tactics, a grovelling agenda as it tries to persuade the International Rugby Board that for the good of the game, New Zealand has to retain its sub-host status.

There is still a slim chance of success, but the New Zealand union should never have allowed the situation to get to such an acute level. It should not have allowed itself to be put at such risk.

The union complains that it cannot deliver 100 per cent clean stadiums, that the rules keep changing, that the whole issue has come down to money.

These assessments may all be correct, but the union also has to be judged on its negotiating skills, business dealings and what resources it threw behind its bid to be the sub-host.

The New Zealand union asked for the tournament. What did it do to make it happen?

Did it really understand what hosting a world tournament of this magnitude involved or was it still caught in the amateur afterglow of the 1987 tournament Down Under?

A World Cup is a mega-event, sprawling over six weeks, with an orgy of organisation needed to sort out stadiums, catering, broadcasting, sponsorship, ticketing, games, travel, accommodation, hospitality and all the other details which draw hundreds of millions of tourism dollars into a country.

Four years ago, New Zealand was asked to be sub-host to Australia for the fifth world tournament.

For some time, Australia has deployed a core group of about 15 staff to work fulltime on the project, to have weekly reports and briefings about progress, to plan programmes.

Until last year, New Zealand had one staff member working on the World Cup, and that was not even on a fulltime basis.

That staffer was later joined by a contract accountant and general manager Steve Tew, although that was not until a late stage.

That either smells of indifference to what is a massive project, self-assuredness which came unstuck, or commercial inexperience.

While the resources directed towards the World Cup planning were lean, where were the negotiating skills of the New Zealand union?

What did it do to foster a relationship with the IRB to resolve the dramas?

This was a huge deal, it was not a petty scuffle.

But the New Zealanders are now seen as a bunch of whingers who cannot get their act together.

The New Zealand union was timid even when IRB head Vernon Pugh made a "sign now and trust us" offer to work out a compromise about the stadiums.

The IRB would have accepted a best stadium effort from New Zealand. It would not have sued for breach of contract, while the New Zealand union, in scarcely making contact with venue owners, had not done enough research to make a decision.

New Zealand is hardly one to criticise the IRB for its commercial policies.

The New Zealand union embraced the multi-million-dollar Sanzar deal, ditched Canterbury for the $180 million sponsorship with adidas, searched for revenue equalisation deals on All Black tours, and threatened to sue over coach Steve Hansen leaving for Wales.

Now, for the want of a little gumption and lots of homework, New Zealand risks being shut out of the next World Cup and all the ones after that.