Rugby: Blues boss Andrew Hore takes aim at government, demands crowds return in Super Rugby next month

Chief executive Andrew Hore speaks to the media at Blues HQ yesterday. Photo / Getty

Blues boss Andrew Hore says his side's Super Rugby Pacific season is financially broken and the damage will only be mitigated by the ability to welcome back crowds when the six New Zealand teams return from their Queenstown bubble next month.

As the Blues prepare to depart Auckland for the next four weeks, stopping in Wellington for their first preseason game on Sunday en route to Queenstown, Hore fronted media and could not conceal his frustrations at the government's ongoing Covid restrictions.

"The season is not completely broken yet but it is about mitigating the losses," Hore said. "If you can have your members in and you can look after them, like they've looked after us, that goes a long way. It's making sure you can give something back.

"This outbreak has come right at the beginning of the season; people have endured so much before that this is the most challenging of the three. We're in no man's land about where things go. Then you've got these draconian close contact rules that make, for most businesses in this country looking through an economic lens, everything unworkable and seemingly very disorganised."

The Covid red light settings that restrict gatherings to 100 people continue to force sports and events to be cancelled throughout the country. Coupled with the government's initial close contact definition that would require entire Super Rugby teams to isolate for 10 days, and New Zealand Rugby were left little choice but to move swiftly to stand up the Queenstown bubble to protect all-important broadcast revenue.

From a Blues perspective, though, balance sheets that have endured two years of hardship are now facing another grim season with the team based in the south for the next month.

When the team is due to return home in early March, Hore is at the point of demanding crowds be permitted to attend games.

"It's time now to move on," Hore said. "We're expecting crowds. People have made their choices around vaccinations and those people who are double vaxxed should be rewarded with being able to go to these things. I don't think we should be held to ransom by those that haven't. The rest of the world seems to be getting on with it.

"We seem to be caught in some form of political turmoil that needs to be sorted. People are starting to get to a point now where life has got to get moving again and this is getting a bit silly. We definitely believe we've got to reward those that have behaved in the appropriate manner and they should be able to watch footy and participate in day-to-day activities."

The transtasman component of Super Rugby Pacific's remodelled season is scheduled to begin with all teams travelling to Melbourne on April 22. Like anything at present, planning for that juncture remains shrouded in uncertainty but Hore remains hopeful that, come April, those fixtures will somehow play out.

"There's still a lot of detail to be worked out whether it's 10 or seven days isolation and what that actually means for teams acting in a bubble. Those kinds of things need to be flushed out. As you can see a week or two is such a long time at the moment, we can't quite get our finger on it. We're planning it'll go ahead and we'll probably be able to work around whatever rules are imposed. The beauty is there's a glimmer of light that we're moving in the right direction which is positive."