KEY POINTS:
Manawatu and Northland appear to be the unions with the most to fear when the national championship is reduced to either 12 or 11 teams from next season.
The 14 top-flight unions were to discover their fate early today, with an official announcement from the NZRU expected to follow tomorrow.
Debt-riddled Tasman will be cut adrift, with two others likely to join them. Up to seven other unions are potentially under threat. The five Super 14 bases and North Harbour are safe but the fate of others was determined on Saturday by the NZRU. The first-round upsets in the Air New Zealand Cup have no bearing on the decision.
Six key criteria were to have been applied. An analysis suggests the Turbos and the Taniwha were the most likely candidates for the chop.
Manawatu chief executive Hadyn Smith said the union's own calculations placed it about ninth or 10th on the rankings list.
The Turbos have attracted good crowds to their home matches and turned a profit in each of the past two seasons. Financial position and management accounts for 30 per cent of each union's ranking in deciding who to cut, which should help Manawatu. But in other categories such as on-field performance, population base and player numbers, they are firmly in the bottom three.
Northland racked up losses of $808,000 over the past two seasons and could also score poorly in the governance and player development categories. They could, however, have been insulated by their status as a strategically important development union for the Blues.
Taranaki's small player base - the lowest of all 14 unions - and small population base (second only to Southland) will drag its score down but it has performed adequately on the field and last year reversed the previous year's operating loss of $112,000.
Bay of Plenty are among the worst financial performers, having lost $760,000 last year, and recently laid off most of their core development staff. But they have the largest population base and highest playing numbers.
Hawkes Bay have been the strongest on-field performer and rank second only to Counties Manukau in terms of financial performance. They also have strong playing numbers, a middling population base and solid support.
Counties Manukau have managed to turn a profit of over $200,000 in each of the past two seasons. The union should also be helped by it's large population and the high number of registered players. The region is also considered strategically important as a player catchment area due to its large Polynesian population.
Southland have the lowest population base. The southern-most union lost over $300,000 in 2006 and $41,000 last year.
The wildcard for all the unions appears to be the governance (15 per cent) and training and development (20 per cent) criterium, both of which seem open to interpretation. Then there is the fact that the NZRU wasn't actually bound by the assessment criterium anyway. The board was ultimately free to go with its gut instincts. And that will have made everyone nervous.
