Rugby: NRU back into black

The Northland Rugby Union has turned around its poor financial position from five years ago to break even after hosting last month's Super Rugby pre-season fixture at Toll Stadium.

Taniwha headquarters reported 3742 Northlanders turned out for the Blues-Waratahs match, for a profit of just under $900.

Northland Rugby Union (NRU) chief executive Jeremy Parkinson said although he did not consider the profit a huge success, it was important to work hard to bring Blues fixtures to Northland.

"At the end of the day we'd done our numbers beforehand and we needed 3800 to break even," said Mr Parkinson.

"We need to be shown to be working hard in supporting the Blues and getting games up here otherwise they're not going to offer them to us."

Breaking even from the Super Rugby fixture, which capped off a massive week of international sport for the region, has continued the NRU's positive trend after posting a provisional profit from last year's accounts.

Mr Parkinson said nothing was confirmed yet but they expected to be in the black. Because of the previous season's losses, however, the good news counted for nothing.

"The bigger picture is we're effectively back to zero because we were in a hell of a hole last year. The ship still isn't overly healthy financially as we still a lot of unsecured debt from when things went pear shaped five or six years ago."

Mr Parkinson said the New Zealand Rugby Union runs a traffic light system, where red and orange were concerning and green was positive.

"We're one of only six unions running in the black this year. We're out of that red and orange for the first time in a long time and into the green."

That was because locals had got out to support the Taniwha, with home crowd averages jumping 1500 to 5000 Northlanders a game. As a result, 37 per cent more food and beverages were sold, and more corporate boxes and lounges were sold.

In 2007 Northland declared a $350,000 book loss which left it in danger of being demoted to the Heartland Championship.

The NRU accounts will be confirmed at AGM on March 27.