KEY POINTS:
Acting NZRL chairman Andrew Chalmers is running about 20 minutes late for our lunch.
It allows plenty of time to study the menu. The vine-wrapped roast quail stuffed with fennel sausage looks intriguing but, at $22, probably won't go over too well with the Herald's paymasters.
It doesn't exactly scream league, either.
Chalmers has picked the venue, but it raises more questions about the man attempting to change the way the sport is run in this country.
Since he took over from Selwyn Bennett following the Nathan Fien 'Grannygate Affair', plenty has been said about Chalmers. Curiously, for a league administrator, he has said almost nothing.
As debate raged over his campaign to overhaul the sport, his only words for public consumption have come in the form of concisely worded statements.
They give away nothing of the man himself. Just who is Andrew Chalmers? What is he trying to achieve, and why? Has he really, as a recent article suggested, taken over the NZRL to stroke his ego?
He turns up; dressed smart casual, carrying a few kilos - the build of a former athlete who hasn't made it to the training ground in a while.
I order a beer, he orders water. The age-old journalistic tactic of pouring a few pints into the subject then listening to them bare their souls isn't going to play here. No quail starters, either. Just pork belly for him, hapuku for me.
It's obvious Chalmers is indeed different. He doesn't fit the league administrator mould. When we get down to the nitty-gritty, he uses phrases such as "best practice", "balance of independence"and "machinery of governance". He enthuses about the need for the NZRL to have "strategic business planning and budget cycles", "corporate disciplines" and to "future-proof" itself.
He often pauses, taking time to formulate a composed response to questions - a far cry from the heart-before-head outbursts leagueys have turned into an art-form.
Schooled at Massey University, he then joined a star-studded Wainuiomata team that, in 1991, bristled with the Lomax brothers, Jason Gilbert and a 16-year-old Tana Umaga. Wainui once held their own against Manly in a pre-season game.
A back-rower who converted to fullback, Chalmers played on the wing against the Sea-Eagles but it was at a New Zealand Maori tournament that he attracted interest from across the Tasman. He trained with St George in 1992 before joining Manly. "You went there because it was a sure route to get in the Kiwis. But a hard route as well."
He played reserve grade at Manly and Balmain before a twice-broken arm and a broken thumb convinced him there were easier ways to earn a living. With a bachelor's in marketing and honours' and master's degrees in finance from Massey, he worked as an associate lecturer at the University of New South Wales.
In business, after giving up his football dream, he spent seven years in Sydney, eventually as a group managing director and CEO of a travel company that boasted 550 staff and an annual revenue of $A280 million.
His interests in New Zealand are mostly in forestry and travel technology.
Such credentials led my fellow columnist and coaching icon Graham Lowe to describe Chalmers the administrator as "as good as anyone I'd ever had dealings with".
"He is very smart, very calm," says Lowe. "He is the perfect person to take the game forward. It is growing and needs someone to take it through that growth spurt.
"Andrew has the vision, courage and the experience - I think the game is crying out for him, to tell the truth."
But Lowe's opinion isn't unanimous. Former board members have questioned the legitimacy of his temporary chairmanship, and his suspension of board member Peter Douglas has also attracted criticism.
Given that his attempts to modernise the game's administration involved encouraging people to vote for their own execution, it's no surprise Chalmers has made enemies. But he has remained silent. And that silence has created a vacuum filled mainly by those painting him as a none-too-benevolent dictator.
"The one thing I can't control is the massive amounts of misinformation in the press. It is disappointing, but there is little I can do to control what journos choose to write and which people make comments. The alternative is to get into squabbles and debates in the media. That's not how it should be done."
But isn't that the way league's always done it? "I'd like to say a lot of things, but I won't because they are not helpful. It's about what's in the best interests of the game."
Despite the flak, he has so far got his way - with the game's 22 regional affiliates voting unanimously this month to endorse constitutional changes aimed at boosting the level of commercial and professional expertise of those running the game.
A new nine-member board, to include three non-elected professional directors, will be voted in at the AGM next month.
Former board members, including Chalmers, will be free to stand for re-election. The reform was born out of a report into the NZRL's governance that suggested the day of the enthusiastic amateur administrator was over.
Chalmers concurs: " We are implementing the machinery associated with that report. It's an opportunity for a new board to seek a fresh mandate and to change the way the chairman is determined, which needs to be done by the board and not the members."
Any regrets? "You can hope that things play out a different way but you have to deal with the situation that is in front of you."
But why would a man with six kids from two different marriages and successful businesses "a life and a half away from all this" feed himself into a grinder that has claimed so many victims?
"Take the Andrew Chalmers out of what's happening. The game needed to be reformed, on and off the field. The only programme that makes money is the Kiwis.
"All the others are a cost and that cost has to come from somewhere. So unless we maximise the commercial value of our properties, we can't run grass-roots programmes. That is the simple reality."
Was the Nathan Fien debacle the final straw? Long, long pause. "This reform needed to happen regardless of the eligibility issue. Members have been calling at various times for an overhaul of a host of things. I think it's true to say it was the catalyst - but it was long overdue."
Chalmers' vision is two-fold. In order to grow the game at grass roots level, the sport needs to maximise its revenue. To do that, the international game must be sorted out. World Cups and international tournaments need to be set in stone decades ahead, not days, as is currently the case. It's something common to other major sports - but, to league, it is uncharted territory.
"We need to be able to offer up to corporate stakeholders four- or five-year programmes that they can buy into and be part of, rather than offering them just one year or one test. The commercial agreements that sit around that, which I can't talk about at the moment, are absolutely critical.
"It's a massive step forward. Through these processes, we will be able to improve our position dramatically."
The structure of the country's domestic competitions are also in for an overhaul, with Lowe undertaking a national competitions review at the behest of the NZRL.
"We need to deconstruct our thinking," says Chalmers. "Why do we have that competition? Why does it sit there? What does it achieve? How does it sit in terms of participation and high performance?"
The one question that remains is what Chalmers plans to do next? A Sunday newspaper recently reported that his name was on the ballot for election to the new NZRL board, which would seem to indicate that he hopes to be around to drive through the changes he has instigated. But he won't confirm that publicly.
"I don't want to be seen to be campaigning. It has to be a process divorced from me. We have taken the best advice we can and there is still a lot of work to do.
"But it is not about me. It is about the game. I have a very full life and a half outside of this. The easiest thing for me would be to walk away."
