Delight at growth in players

Wairarapa-Bush bucked the national trend by having a one per cent increase in the number of registered rugby players for the 2011 season.

This was in contrast to official figures released by the NZRFU which showed there was a slight decrease in the number of player registrations across the country, which is said to be primarily driven by the flow-on effects of the Christchurch earthquake.

Wairarapa-Bush had 3849 men, women and children registered to play the sport this year and the union's chief executive officer Phil Taylor is confident of further growth next year due to the groundswell of interest created by the Rugby World Cup.

"We are anticipating strong numbers next season," he said.

Nationally, the number of registrations totalled 145,689 and while that was slightly down on 2010 the NZRFU reports a three per cent increase when figures are taken over the last five years.

Former All Black and Wairarapa-Bush rep Brent Anderson is now general manager of provincial union and community rugby for the NZRFU and he was pleased to see the number of coaches registered throughout New Zealand increasing by two per cent to just over 11,000 and also the number of referees rising by one per cent to nearly 2000.

"That's an 11 per cent rise in the number of coaches over the past five years and 15 per cent jump in the number of referees ... very impressive results," Anderson said.

"And the retention rate for coaches and referees has been positive with more than three-quarters of referees continuing from the previous season."

Disappointing for Anderson, though, was the news the number of administrators and volunteer numbers were down by eight per cent to 5892 but he was aware many volunteers had not registered with their provincial unions after having done so in 2010 as part of a push for priority tickets for RWC 2011.

Locally, the number of registered coaches has increased but there were decreases in both the refereeing and volunteer ranks.

"We certainly do need to boost numbers there and anybody interested in coming on board should contact either the union or a club," Taylor said.

Both Anderson and Taylor are certain the NZRFU's RWC legacy programme will grow rugby in every sense.

Anderson said the national body was working hard with the provincial unions to ensure there were long-term benefits for the sport.

Last year the NZRFU spent $5.4 million on community rugby plan initiatives as part of the overall investment in game development. Another $8 million in untagged grants was allocated to provincial unions to also support their development of the code.