LEAGUE - Former ref will need to whistle up all his skills

Many would say Sonny Hohepa has jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire by accepting the chair of the Whangarei and Districts Rugby League in troubled times.
The mild-mannered Hohepa, who has just retired from 25 years of refereeing the game, will once again be in the hot seat tomorrow night as he explains constitutional changes proposed by SPARC administrators to the New Zealand Rugby League.
"No one wanted this job, I was bullied into it," Hohepa manages a convincing laugh.
"But seriously, I could see that rugby league here and nationally is in a bit of a crisis, in terms of the structures anyway, so there's a lot of work to be done."
The failure of the board of the NZRL has been big news over the past couple of weeks and their problems, particularly the financial and structural ones, will affect rugby league players in Northland.
Club delegates at tomorrow's meeting can be assured of an interesting night but there is one burden that is already common knowledge - clubs will need to pay for their own transport to competition games this season.
"Finding sponsorship to replace the bulk funding [that was paid for by the NZRL last season] will be one of our biggest challenges this year," Hohepa said.
"Right now I can't discuss many of the other issues because I haven't informed the local clubs yet - that will happen on Tuesday night."
The NZRL board has been stood down, but Hohepa and former chairperson Sharon Bird, who has remained on the local board as vice-chair, have been talking with the auditors appointed by SPARC.
"The problems [with NZRL] won't be fixed overnight, they're a bit too serious for that, but once the actual season starts, then I think the new board can be left alone to come up with some ideas about how to fix the problems," Hohepa said.
There is a mountain of information to consider - and first are the competition structures.
Last year the decision to leave Northland out of the national under-16 and under-18 competition was a huge bone of contention between the national body and the local league.
"It is a national problem really, they're not playing league in Otago and Tasman for example, Hawke's Bay, Coastline and East Coast are struggling and you'd have to add Northland to that but the thing is we're lucky, we're still playing the game," Hohepa said.
He said while some of the "golden era" clubs like the Otaikas and the West End Jumbos have all gone into recess, Northland still has the Moerewas, the Takahiwais and the Portlands to keep it going.
From the 2008 season, Marist has gone into recess but the league could see a new-look Kensington side replace them, while Waitangi have shown interest in re-entering the competition for 2009.
"We are very interested in them coming back in but we are asking both clubs to come up with a strategic plan and a business plan for the next three years ...we don't want fly-by-night clubs," he said.
The issue of whether the Ngawha Prison team, the Ngawha Saints, will again be involved in the league this year, after controversially pulling out of the playoffs in 2008 is another matter up for discussion.
"They've had a few changes there, they have a new prison manager, new structures, new policies... and I've come in and said let's put all of that behind us and come up with some new proposals, so I can present them to the clubs because they are the ones who will say yea or nay."
There are a few other issues facing Northland league and the former Moerewa Tiger, who now heads the organisation. He may have thought that refereeing was a tough job but compared with this it seems like child's play.