Field of nightmares

June 21, 2008
The birth of the Tasman Rugby Union was a bold attempt to launch the top of the south into the big-time. Instead, it has descended into in-fighting, recrimination and potential collapse. Geoff Collett reports on how it all went so badly wrong. -------------------- Let's get the inevitable marriage metaphors out of the way right at the start. As in, the rugby- coupling of Nelson and Marlborough three years ago was never going to be a match made in heaven, and when money troubles entered the relationship, the old suspicions and animosities were always going to come tumbling back out into the open.
Which they have, with accusations flying of one partner sneaking behind the other's back or flirting on the side, of the silent treatment being meted out, of the bride's dowry being disrespected by the groom, etc, etc. You get the picture.
And now, some very tough love indeed is going to be needed to restore the relationship the Tasman Rugby Union is founded on.
Either that, or the whole thing is at serious risk of coming to a crashing, grinding halt.
If if all sounds a bit melodramatic, consider an overview of the Tasman union, the machine behind the mighty Makos: The creditors are being continually staved off, some of them owed money from a good 18 months ago, a couple having to be convinced not to go through with court action.
The day-to-day outgoings are becoming unbearable. There's not enough cash coming in to pay the bills.
There has been ongoing bargaining with the money lenders at the BNZ over the security of their interests - the thick end of $3 million in mortgage and overdraft lending. They could yet call in the receivers.
The hunt for both new income and cost cutting has been limited at best in its success.
There's more. With provincial rugby generally drifting in uncertain waters, and several unions struggling financially, the future of the Air New Zealand Cup competition - the Tasman union's original reason for being - is deeply uncertain.
Those who were never happy with the thought of Nelson and Marlborough uniting are reactivating their agitation for a return to the old days.
Lansdowne Park - long the pride of Marlborough rugby and taken over by Tasman as part of the amalgamation - is looking increasingly likely to pass out of rugby ownership, maybe into local government control but possibly at least part of it into the hands of property developers.
Much of this is not news, at least not to those in the thick of local rugby politics. The unpleasantness at the Tasman Rugby Union has been a long time coming - a train wreck in slow motion.
But it's becoming news for the wider world because crunch time is here. Next Tuesday night, the union board is holding a special general meeting over in Blenheim, seeking the membership's approval to raise a $600,000 loan from the NZRU to ensure it can keep functioning for the rest of this year; and to sell off most of the outlying grounds at Lansdowne Park, leaving the main ground and grandstand but hopefully raising the cash to clear the albatross- like mortgages off its books.
The two plans have been linked, the union saying that if it can't sell the land the NZRU won't advance it the cash.
It's opened up the prospect of an ugly tussle. As one Marlborough rugby stalwart dramatically put it when the Lansdowne sell- off plan was revealed last week: "I'll chain myself to the gate if it's going to private investors. I'll leave my blood on the gate."
On the other hand, if things turn to custard in the days ahead, it will be someone else's blood being spilled.
"I t's been incredibly disheartening, " says Peter Barr. He's the Tasman union chief executive and he's talking from his staff's perspective. "It's hard when you're trying to deliver a product to your community and you have a fair degree of negativity coming from various directions and you know you can't do things as well as you would like to because you haven't got the funding."
Barr's only been in the boss's office at Makos HQ down at Trafalgar Park in Nelson for a few months, although he's hardly the new boy in town: he was the Nelson Bays union CEO back in 2005 and an architect of the Tasman project, providing the platform for the top of the south to join the New Zealand Rugby Union's ambitious new provincial rugby contest.
Barr stepped down when the amalgamation took place but returned in March, on the departure of Tasman's inaugural CEO, Lee Germon. He has certainly walked into it.
Barr always knew the merger was going to be a big call.
He plays the part of discreet executive well, but occasionally offers a glimpse of how maddening things must have become, be it the momentum supposedly building around a Marlborough breakaway faction, or the constant grind of managing the union's precarious finances.
Reflecting on the risks surrounding next week's decisions, Barr muses: "If we don't get that loan, we're dead in the water." He's quick to temper that, saying that even then, the NZRU may allow the Makos to compete in this season's Air NZ Cup and that Tasman is refusing to entertain such negative worst-case scenarios. But the dramatic language is telling.
The unravelling of Tasman's master plan started early.
Much of it is well known, history that is only worth recapping to provide the necessary context for today's trouble.
Union chairman Max Spence steps once more through a now well-honed narrative.
First, there was the need to get at least one of the new union's two home grounds (Lansdowne Park and Nelson's Trafalgar Park) up to the level demanded by the NZRU for Air NZ Cup involvement. There were strict standards for covered seating, under-stand facilities, night-match lighting, and so on. Lansdowne became the focus for the simple reason that the union owned it.
In simple terms, the development bill blew out, from $1.9 million to $2.3 million, Spence says, and other core costs - including interest bills to service the bigger-than-expected mortgage - followed suit.
In more complicated terms, Marlborough Mayor Alistair Sowman recalls the union fronting up before his council in search of support, with a "compelling" business plan centred around Lansdowne Park - good enough to convince the council to put up a $400,000 loan. "They were going to have a more robust finance model that they had presented to council - for example, getting naming rights for the ground . . . " Sowman says. "Unfortunately, a lot of the rationale behind their application hasn't been followed through."
Spence concedes as much: the fledgling union thought it had nailed down "what we felt were going to be realistic levels of revenue" from various sources - grants, gaming trusts, sponsorship and the like, plus the opportunity to realise a tidy sum from selling off a handful of sections on the edge of Lansdowne Park, zoned for house building.
But, as he says, "reality hasn't measured up".
He talks of curve balls, and it's apparent they've been pitched the union's way with unrelenting vigour.
Land sales have been far slower to realise than expected (a couple of sections have been under conditional offer since last year). The lack of a complying Nelson ground for the Makos to play on saw Lansdowne Park become the default home ground, something sponsors were cool on. Some pulled out. Funds from the all- important gaming trusts were tighter than expected.
More controversially, Spence suggests the new Tasman administration found some unpleasant surprises buried in the Marlborough union's books as it got itself up and running. He won't be specific - "I'm trying not to inflame the situation" - but says it was clear that Marlborough had been "asset rich (on the strength of owning Lansdowne Park) and cash poor". A block of surplus Lansdowne land that was able to be quickly disposed of helped deal to that, he says, but it was another curve ball.
Then the costs: higher-than-anticipated bills to set the union up, higher-than-expected player fees - with the new competition pitching 14 provincial teams into the market for talent, and the buoyant international demand for New Zealand rugby players, the asking price soared beyond what Tasman expected.
Both Barr and Spence are determined to accentuate whatever positives they can find. Like the understanding they've had from their creditors, ranging from the bankers down to the tradesmen and businesses who have been waiting months and months to be paid for services rendered. "No-one's wanting to bury us, " Spence says. Sponsors have been "incredibly supportive", says Barr. "They see the bigger picture."
Their more immediate problem lies within, personified by Marlborough sub-union chairman Peter Heagney - also a Tasman board member - who has emerged as the leader of protests against the rescue package centred around selling up at least part of Lansdowne Park. Heagney doesn't disguise the sub-plot in all of this - the unresolved suspicion and animosity between elements in the two provinces.
While the immediate source of unrest is the prospect of Lansdowne Park slipping out of rugby hands, Heagney makes clear that it's simply heaped on top of other lingering grievances with a common thread - that Marlborough has got the raw end of the Tasman deal, seeing precious little for its involvement in the union. "Really, over here, it doesn't do anything for us at all."
Now, with the Tasman constitution meaning that decision-making clout is evenly split between Nelson and Marlborough - giving Nelson rugby clubs equal say in the fate of the Blenheim ground - the final straw may have been added to the burden.
Heagney claims that most of Marlborough's rugby sorts want a return to their own union.
The Tasman experiment "was something that people had a go at and, in my opinion, it hasn't quite worked, so most probably it's time to move on".
Spence, despite striving to be the voice of reason, struggles to disguise his irritation with Heagney.
Heagney was part of a working group charged with helping find a way to clear the Lansdowne Park burden off the union's books, Spence complains, but he's been off "talking in the media about alternatives he hasn't brought to the board yet" (a reference to Heagney openly suggesting the Marlborough District Council or some Blenheim-centred fundraising campaign could allow the Marlborough people to reclaim control of their park).
"This is not all about Marlborough here. It's about Tasman, and the Marlborough and Nelson sub-unions, " Spence says. "It's very important we don't lose sight of that.
"I think there's an element in Marlborough that didn't want to participate in the Tasman merger. They see this as an opportunity to perhaps go back to the way it was. But they can't and it won't."
If Lansdowne Park was ever considered a jewel in some rugby crown, Spence now leaves every impression that it's become a millstone. Rugby unions have no future owning and managing stadiums, he argues repeatedly. It's a proven formula for trouble - he's discovered in recent days that Marlborough Rugby, which had negligible debt outstanding on Lansdowne Park when the merger took place, had needed a rescue package in 1988 and again in 1995, presumably a direct consequence of having to maintain the sprawling complex.
Heagney's argument that Lansdowne is the heart of rugby in Marlborough, hosting hundreds of players in training and matches during the season, doesn't sway Spence.
"It's a nice touchy-feely. The union provides a fantastic facility that the union can be very proud of for the community's use. The question that raises is, does the community then pay their share? . . . Is it the responsibility of the sports organisation to provide a wonderful facility for the community?"
Much about Tasman's fate lies in the hands of the NZRU - both the strings-attached offer of a life-saving loan (take the money but clear the mortgages), but also big questions over the future of the Air NZ Cup.
A thorough review is scheduled for later this year. Will there still be room for a top of the south union that has struggled off the field and ended the previous two competitions in the lower reaches?
Spence, of course, is determinedly optimistic.
"If we can get on top of our finances and show that we've got a workable plan going forward, I'm convinced that Tasman - the top of the south - has a logical position or a future in the domestic competition, whatever shape or form it takes."
If the NZRU has reached its own conclusions about the performance of Tasman so far, it isn't giving much away. Its general manager of community and provincial union rugby, Brent Anderson, has been taking a close - Peter Barr says almost daily - interest in progress at the Makos HQ.
Anderson won't go any further than suggesting that those contemplating a return to separate Nelson and Marlborough unions should see the value that's come from the Tasman model. "I think if you talk to people, there's certainly been a lot of positives out of Tasman forming and being one union."
There is a popular argument that the NZRU has been as much a part of the problem as the solution: that the structure of the new competition imposed ridiculous requirements, especially on smaller unions and especially for a contest that only had a guaranteed three- year life.
Far from reinvigorating provincial rugby in this country, it has become an unbearable burden, the argument goes.
While it is at the heart of one of the more profound issues facing New Zealand rugby, extensively debated, and one of the NZRU's top priorities - the difficulties spelled out in detail in its last annual report - Anderson is determinedly bland in his comments. Asked if it's the model at fault, he simply responds that the whole competition is up for review and, "personally, I haven't done the analysis of that at all".
For what it's worth, Spence adds his voice to the chorus demanding that the NZRU needs to "make the domestic competition more sustainable for all unions, not just Tasman", and that the sport's PR problems have further queered the pitch for struggling provincial unions.
Anderson is cagey around what expectations the NZRU will be putting on the Tasman union in return for the bail-out, but its powers shouldn't be underestimated.
In the Bay of Plenty, it effectively took over the running of the local union after a financial crisis unfolded there.
Could a similar scenario be seen in Tasman?
"I can't speak for them. It hasn't been raised, " says Peter Barr.
Besides, as he's already argued, look at the positive side of the ledger: already, the Makos first team has created a real aspiration for Nelson's and Marlborough's up-and-coming players.
It's being coached by rugby deity Todd Blackadder (who, Barr says, has been careful to shield his players from the administrative woes) and has set up a close-to-home avenue straight into the country's top domestic competition, a stepping stone to Super rugby greatness, even.
Already the benefits are showing through, he argues - look at the success of top-of-the-south teams in The Press Cup, the Crusaders region secondary schools competition.
"We've shown a union of our size can produce stars."
The question, though, is whether it will be watching them from the gutter, or from its own comfortable place in the rugby firmament.

PARK'S FUTURE UP IN THE AIR
The immediate - and possibly the long- term - future of the Tasman Rugby Union should be decided at a special general meeting in Blenheim on Tuesday night. Two resolutions are up for decisions - the first, whether the union should accept a $600,000 loan from the New Zealand Rugby Union, which would be interest- free for the first year and secured against Lansdowne Park as a third mortgage (the first mortgage is with the Marlborough District Council; the second, and major, one with the BNZ). That money would principally be used to pay back the army of creditors owed money by the union - board chairman Max Spence argues that it would allow the union to consolidate its debt around a few big creditors rather than having to manage dozens.
The second vote will be to allow the union's board to negotiate the sale of Lansdowne Park's No 2, 3, 5 and 6 grounds for not less than $3 million (plus GST). The union will still own the main park and grandstand, and have enough money to clear the mortgages on Lansdowne Park.
It has had an expression of interest from a Christchurch property company, which Spence won't name, in buying the outlying grounds - speculation is that the development would make way for a big retail project - but such a move would be complicated by the need to get the land rezoned.
Meanwhile, Marlborough Mayor Alistair Sowman has revealed that he is reluctant to see any part of the park lost to the community, and has ordered an urgent investigation into whether the council might step in and buy Lansdowne off the union. He is expected to meet with union representatives before Tuesday's meeting but needs to also take a firm proposal to his own council, which is in the process of confirming its spending plans for the year ahead.
The Tasman Rugby Union's rules demand that 75 percent of all its members have to be at Tuesday's meeting (or at least to have given a proxy vote) and the decisions have to be carried by an 80 percent majority. While Nelson dominates the union membership in pure numbers, voting is structured so that Nelson and Marlborough interests have equal voting power overall.
 Nelson Mail