Rugby: NZRFU does u-turn on rejig of NPC

The New Zealand Rugby Football Union has done a u-turn on Brian Lochore's recommendations for the future of provincial rugby.

Third-division provinces will now have the choice of continuing in their division or moving into the new second division of the National Provincial Championship next season.

The NZRFU reversed its earlier decision to establish just two divisions from next season following a meeting with the country's 27 provincial union chairmen and chief executives in Wellington. There will be a first-division competition, preferably with 12 teams, and the rest of the provinces will be invited to play in the new second division.

But third-division teams who want to retain a third-division competition will be allowed to do so.

The back-tracking is seen as a rare but significant victory by New Zealand's cash-strapped grassroots rugby provinces over the corporate-style union.

"The change has definitely eased our minds. We have achieved a positive outcome to move forward," said Bill Burdett, the chairman of the country's smallest provincial union, East Coast.

At least six of eight third division provinces - North Otago, West Coast, Horowhenua-Kapiti, Buller, East Coast and Poverty Bay - indicated they wanted to continue a third division competition, Burdett said. Only Wairarapa-Bush and South Canterbury were leaning towards moving into the new second division.

The decision means the NZRFU will have to re-format the NPC from 2000 and beyond.

It still needs to establish whether all the provincial unions it has in mind for the first division will meet its criteria such as financial viability.

The NZRFU promised substantial grants to Bay of Plenty and the Vikings to help them qualify for the first division from next season.

The Vikings, an amalgamation of Manawatu and Hawkes Bay who won the second-division competition from Bay of Plenty last season, have been dissolved.

NZRFU chief executive David Moffett said expanded grants to the smaller provincial unions from Super 12 earnings and from the NZRFU were chiefly responsible for some of the third-division teams' decisions to continue as they had been. He said that if more than 12 provinces accepted invitations to division two, then the second division would be divided into two conferences with finals across each conference at all levels.

Moffett said: "It may take two or three years before we have 12 teams that satisfy the criteria to compete in division one."

The NZRFU saw the two-division competition as a means of broadening the player-base in the lower-grade competition to feed into the first division and Super 12 franchises.- NZPA