RUGBY REBORN

COVID BROUGHT ECONOMIC CARNAGE IN 2020 BUT RATHER THAN BEING SEEN AS A WRECKER OF FORTUNES, THE PANDEMIC WAS ACTUALLY A GIANT BLESSING.

- Gregor Paul

In early November, New Zealand Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson was predicting his organisation would lose about $40m in 2020.

Revenue, he said, was about 36 per cent down and despite drastic cost-cutting measures that saw almost half the governing body's workforce made redundant and heavy pay cuts imposed on players, the losses were still substantial.

There it was – the impact of Covid-19 laid out in bleak terms and reason to believe that 2020 had been an utter disaster for the professional game in this country.

But arguably that's not the truth. There is an alternative one that says the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns were a giant blessing.

Covid brought the chance to re-set and start again. New Zealand's professional rugby market wasn't out of control before the virus hit, but it was plagued by greed, self-interest and a bloated administration.

There were mad things happening: unfathomable decisions that were inflating costs, duplicating roles and building a culture of entitlement among players, to the extent that rugby's longheld, treasured place as the sport of choice for young New Zealanders was under threat.

Provincial teams were competing with Super Rugby sides for emerging talent, driving the prices up when the money was all coming out of the same pot.

Players were able to sign extended contracts that were worth almost $1m a year which also came with phenomenally generous sabbatical clauses that let them play one or even two seasons in Japan at $1.5m a time.

There had been dramatic headcount inflation which led to a 70 per cent rise in staff at New Zealand Rugby between 2015 and 2019.