Rugby: Unions in legal bids to stay in top flight

The New Zealand Rugby Union can expect a wad of large brown envelopes to start dropping into the letterbox at Wellington HQ this week as endangered unions take the legal route to save their top-flight status.

Tasman late last week fired off an appeal against the decision to cut the Air New Zealand Cup to 10 teams. It is understood theirs is not a legal challenge in the strictest sense but they are using the union's constitution to challenge the criteria used to determine the four teams to be axed and the process by which the decision was made to revert to a 10-team first division and six-team second tier.

Last night the NZRU's general manager, professional rugby, Neil Sorensen, confirmed Tasman had lodged the appeal. It would be considered by the Appeals Council "in due course".

Counties Manukau chief executive Phil McConnell said "the chances were high" that his union would file a legal challenge in the coming days, as the deadline to the December 10 NZRU board meeting that will determine their fate approaches.

Another "at-risk" union, Northland, had sought "independent advice" and chairman Andrew Golightly will tonight present to his board legal options to consider before going to the NZRU.

Golightly said he could not talk about other unions' legal positions but Northland had a letter from the NZRU inviting them into the Air NZ Cup in 2009 and 2010 providing they met certain conditions, including a number of board members retiring and proving they were financially sustainable.

"We've done everything asked. We've passed the solvency test. This is the second year we will be in the black," Golightly said.

A NZRU press release after a provincial union workshop is understood to have piqued the interest of the legal fraternity. It states that the timing of the changes from a 14-team to a 10-team Air NZ Cup is for 2011 onwards, "but changes could be introduced in 2010 if all parties are in agreement".

The NZRU will likely argue that at the time the changes were ratified all parties were in agreement, though the "at-risk" unions will dispute this.

Tasman chairman Nick Patterson could not discuss the intricacies of the appeal he sent to Wellington but he did talk about a meeting he recently had with NZRU chief executive Steve Tew, chairman Jock Hobbs and board members Graham Mourie and Ken Douglas.

"I came away with the feeling it was going to take something dramatic for the NZRU to do anything other than cut four teams from the competition," said Patterson. "They were not listening, they had decided this had to happen."

The joker in the pack is the outcome of the collective bargaining process between the NZRU and the New Zealand Rugby Players' Association. If a contracting model cannot be agreed upon for a 10-team, six-team split, any legal challenges would remain moot as the status quo is retained for 2010.

Head of the Players' Association Rob Nichol said he had been made aware of the potential legal action of some unions, but it remained "something to be worked out between the NZRU and the provinces".

"From our perspective we will continue to work on these issues through collective bargaining in the hope that this will produce an outcome everyone agrees with."

McConnell held serious doubts whether the merits of a second-tier competition could be justified by the players' association.

"It's a Clayton's competition," he said. "The mere fact that you have promotion-relegation does not make it meaningful if you're losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year while you are there."

Manawatu chief executive John Knowles said his union had also considered a pre-emptive legal strike but, after consulting a lawyer, he is "not sure we would have much of a case".

However, Knowles made it clear the green and whites would not go down quietly.

"If they decide to move to a 10-team competition and we are one of four unions to go down, we will certainly be looking at all our [legal] options," he said.

It is understood all the unions received their rankings this week although they are yet to be made public.

- ADDITIONAL REPORTING David Leggat