Hamilton Boys High School line up during the Boys secondary schools national final. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
New Zealand Rugby is making its move to take control of secondary schools rugby, but the controversial play has met plenty of resistance. Gregor Paul reports.
For years, New Zealand Rugby has wanted to take over the running of the game in secondary schools.
Now, having taken possession of the first of two $100 million payments from US investment firm Silver Lake, the national body is finally making its move to take control of schools rugby.
NZR has already met the nation's leading rugby schools and outlined a vision where it becomes the sole governing body for the secondary school system – responsible for managing and delivering the sport nationwide.
On the face of it, the rationale driving NZR's move is supported by a convincing argument.
NZR believes rugby is being gripped by an existential crisis of declining participation among teenage boys.
And it says that in its current administrative form it is powerless to arrest declining numbers, which has seen registered secondary school male players fall 10 per cent from 25,838 in 2009 to 23,4013 in 2021.
What those numbers don't reveal is the extent of the drop-out between the ages of 10 and 18.
The game is extraordinarily good at attracting young players, just not keeping them, and figures compiled in 2018 showed that while there were close to 10,000 registered 10-year-olds that year, there were only 3000 18-year-olds, suggesting that typically, only a third of male players who play rugby in their first year of secondary school, will still be playing in their last.
The impact of losing so many teens is being felt at club rugby, where there were 38,803 registered male players in 2009 and only 33,196 in 2021.
An extensive research project into secondary schools rugby between 2018 and 2020 commissioned by NZR concluded that the issue of falling participation would be best tackled by simplifying the governance structure of the sport at that level and handing control to one body.
The report recommended that: "NZR is the governance body for secondary school rugby and establishes an advisory group that develops the overall vision, values and strategy for secondary school rugby in New Zealand."
Like other major reports completed at that time, it was left in limbo due to the outbreak of Covid, but now that the pandemic is rescinding, NZR is pushing to implement the key findings of that review and make itself the controlling authority of schools rugby.
"We are at a point now where we are getting back to some planned activity," says NZR general manager of community rugby Steve Lancaster.
"That report called out a whole raft of things that can be addressed to improve the health of the game at secondary school level.
"But effectively, it also said, unless you can sort out this governance bit, you are probably wasting your time on everything else.
"This is not about taking the game away from schools and marginalising them or disrespecting their investment and contribution. It is about complementing it. We are engaging with schools about what we think an aligned governance model will look like and why we think an aligned governance model will work."
The key benefits according to Lancaster will be to give schools a voice in how the wider game is run and how they fit into it.
It will simplify the management of competitions, clean up confusion around bylaws as they relate to eligibility. and potentially strengthen relationships between schools and provincial unions.
And because schools sit outside the financial network which sees NZR directly fund provinces, who in turn, directly fund clubs, becoming part of that fraternity may open access to greater resource.
"The conversation we want to be part of is how do we make sure rugby is adding value to the educational outcomes of young people, as opposed to running roughshod over them," says Lancaster.
"We have heard from principals who have rightly told us that their primary responsibility is to deliver an education for young people and grow them.
"If we can't find a way to make sure that rugby is contributing to those positive broader outcomes that the school system is trying to deliver, then we will be in trouble."
But schools have responded to the proposal with a heavy dose of suspicion about whether driving participation is the real objective of a unified governance structure.
Having heard Lancaster's pitch last month, schools say they are not inclined to give NZR what it wants. They say they fear this is a play to further commercialise schools rugby, while many have aired their belief that there could never be cultural alignment between educational institutions and the NZR, which they say is now undeniably a corporate entity given it has a private equity investment partner.
"They are using a business model and are trying to overlay it on anything but a business," says Mount Albert Grammar School principal Patrick Drumm.
"Our core indicators are totally different than you will ever get to what New Zealand Rugby is measured by. I accept that is the professional era, they [NZR] are a going concern but our measures are around human capital, wanting to grow good, young people through the educational process and silverware is one quite minor part of that because most people who play sport don't bring silverware home at the end of the year.
"We have got 1600 people playing sport and so all our indicators are strong."
The Herald has spoken to other principals who say they are concerned that this attempt by NZR to run school rugby is about having greater control over the development of the elite players.
They believe that now NZR is in a financial relationship with Silver Lake, it needs to better secure a pipeline talent from schools through to professional rugby.
Lancaster has heard the same feedback, but he's adamant its not true: that the motivation for NZR to take control of school's rugby is to find ways to adapt and improve the delivery of the game at that level to try to arrest the sharp-drop off in participation that comes when boys reach the ages of 15 and 16.
It's typically about then when it becomes apparent whether someone is going to make the first XV, and for those who realise they are not on that pathway, there is often no suitable team or opportunity for them if the school is overly focused on the elite side.
"We can go back and forward on how much we are a corporate beast and how much we are a community organisation," says Lancaster.
"We are really focused on the health of the community game and the corporate part of it doesn't work if the community part isn't strong and healthy and Silver Lake certainly recognise that.
"They are invested in us preserving rugby at the heart of our communities.
"Governance unlocks the ability for us to have systems conversations around that problem.
"We have got some really good ideas and we see some big opportunities around tournament week. We have delivered some competitions over the last two years that have attracted thousands of teenagers to play in rugby festival events.
"We think if we broaden the offerings for teenagers it will address in some part the drop-off. It might not mean that we keep more kids playing the traditional 16-week tournament, but it might mean there are more kids playing in snackable versions of the game, or non-contact versions.
"We are not coming with all the answers, and we recognise schools exist for a whole raft of reasons."
But deep-rooted suspicion about NZR's motivations is not what is likely to derail their bid to take control of schools rugby.
Their mission seems doomed to fail because most schools disagree that falling participation numbers is the existential crisis NZR says it is, and they certainly don't believe that unification of governance will do anything to arrest the decline.
Many of the principals spoken to the Herald say that the sharp drop-off in playing numbers is reflective of the choice available to the modern teen.
Rugby finds itself in a competitive market – many schools offer more than 30 sports - and as a high-collision game with complex rules and no means to be played safely as a pick-up, social sport on a spare piece of ground, its struggling to keep players from gravitating to basketball, football and orienteering.
Chris Grinter, principal at Rotorua Boys' High School, says: "We understand that NZR are concerned about the drop off in participation rates, but to change governance structures because of that, I don't think there is any alignment.
"I don't think changing governance structures will change participation. There are so many options for young people these days, I don't think it is realistic for NZR to believe they will regain the past numbers of participants. Focusing on past playing numbers is futile.
"My message to NZR is to cherish the schools that are still running strong rugby programmes."
Veteran Sam Cane is given his farewell test appearance.