KEY POINTS:
After slipping into a dark corner of the nation's heart, rugby is slowly winning back its popularity.
But it is a slow, painful journey - it only takes a couple of wrong decisions and one bad result to lose thousands of supporters and months of graft and toil to win them back.
The most positive evidence the sport is clawing its way back came this week when the New Zealand Rugby Union announced a 3 per cent lift in playing numbers in 2008. That follows a 4 per cent drop in 2007.
The number of players has risen from 136,000 in 2007 to slightly more than 140,000. The increase doesn't appear dramatic but the age of the recruits is critical.
The biggest growth is in the under-13 category where almost 69,000 children are registered compared with 64,000 a year ago.
That growth shows the sport must be doing something right as the choices for pre-teens are numerous. That is the real battleground.
Soccer, in particular, is aggressive in its recruitment work around those ages. Rugby's job is made that much harder by lack of male teachers in primary schools.
It's a complex sport and for those who have no affinity or understanding of it, it is a daunting prospect to coach. For many female teachers, rugby simply goes into the too-hard basket.
Soccer is less intimidating and has also been smarter in using clubs and the wider community to recruit players and build interest.
NZRU general manager community and provincial union rugby, Brent Anderson, says: "That change in primary schools where 80 per cent to 90 per cent of teachers are female, means you just cannot expect those people who don't have an affinity with the game, who don't necessarily understand it and are worried about coaching it, to do what you need.
"We understand that and that the players are not just going to come. We want them to come - rugby ticks a whole lot of other boxes. It teaches them about sport, commitment, responsibility and fair play and we have a whole health issue with obesity so kids out running around with a footy ball has got to be a good thing. But they are not just going to come."
What is winning the kids over is rugby's new, consumer-friendly focus. For too long administrators made the assumption most young boys would turn up to play simply because that is what young boys in New Zealand did.
That assumption was damaging to the game's growth and so was rugby's previously inflexible attitude to how it should be played at age-grades.
What Anderson has done is broken down many of the barriers that were stopping children and their parents from getting involved.
"It is a whole package around our Small Blacks," says Anderson of the initiatives that have been responsible for boosting playing numbers.
"We have a development model and it is consistent around the country. We have made the rules the kids play under match up to their physical ability to do the various skills. For instance we don't have lineout lifting because they are not strong enough to lift.
"We have put in place a compulsory coaching course that is all about teaching coaches who are usually dads or mums about what skills they can teach the kids so they don't overload the kids and get them doing stuff they are not capable of doing.
"We have had a bit of a marketing campaign so all kids who play will get a postcard from Richie McCaw saying it is time to get back into footy. We have Small Blacks TV that has a pretty loyal following and kids love seeing themselves and their mates and people like them on TV.
"And our provincial unions have been really good at saying that in the primary schools we don't have a lot of male teachers like we used to so as a provincial union responsibility, we will start organising development officers and running tournaments and those sorts of things all together - we are starting to see the fruits of it."
There is also sufficient anecdotal evidence to suggest other areas of grassroots rugby have strengthened this year. The NZRU believe club rugby has enjoyed greater support than in previous years, while the Heartland Championship has engaged its local communities in a way the Air New Zealand Cup hasn't.
Some improving figures are emerging from the top of the game, too. After an alarmingly slow start where viewing figures were down almost 25 per cent mid-way through the competition, Super 14 gathered momentum in the latter stages.
The average viewing audience of 216,600 for games involving New Zealand teams was up dramatically on the average 185,000 recorded in 2007. It was also up on the 201,221 average audience posted in 2006 - a fairer comparison given the non-appearance of 22 All Blacks in the early rounds of Super 14 in 2007.
Tri Nations figures for 2008 have also held up. The average New Zealand audience for all games was down to 300,000 from 336,000 last year and 329,000 in 2006 but the average audience for All Black games was marginally up on 2006 - the last time the Tri Nations ran the extended format.
An average of 410,000 watched each All Black test this year compared with 450,000 in 2007 and 407,000 the year before.
That number was dragged lower by a poor figure of only 133,000 for the test against the Springboks in Cape Town which was played at the same time as Valerie Vili was winning her gold medal at the Beijing Olympics on TV One.
The only real disappointment was the surprisingly low number who watched the Bledisloe Cup showdown in Brisbane. After an audience of 522,000 for the first Tri Nations test against South Africa in Wellington, there were high hopes the , winner-takes-all last match would gain a bigger following. Only 397,000 people watched, though.
Still, while the audience might not have been as big as liked, there is no question the victory - which secured the All Blacks' fourth consecutive Tri Nations - has done much to bring a disenchanted element closer to their national team.
Rugby is once again something everyone can feel a little more positive about and Williments, the official tour operator for the All Blacks, has enjoyed a surge of business in the last few months.
"After that Eden Park test, when the All Blacks played so well, our phones started to ring hot," says Wendy Tawhai, managing director of Williments Sports Travel. "There are between 400-500 people going to go to Hong Kong which is well above our expectation. We had to go back to the Hong Kong Rugby Union to ask for more tickets."
Even in these tough economic times, the All Blacks are still winning the discretionary dollars.
The NZRU have plenty more to do to keep the sport in robust health but there is no question the outlook is brighter now than it was eight months ago when star players were leaving, viewers had turned off Super 14 and half the nation was refusing to back Graham Henry's re-appointment.
Dan Carter, Richie McCaw and Andrew Hore have signed up for the long-term. Ali Williams, Tony Woodcock, Rodney So'oialo, Mils Muliaina and Keven Mealamu are in talks to do the same.
The All Blacks rank No. 1 in the IRB, more people are playing the game, viewing numbers are slowly recovering and Henry was even seen cracking a smile the other day.
League has enjoyed its 15 minutes of fame these last few weeks but that's probably all it will get. The Warriors come and go, but the All Blacks and rugby, well, they are for keeps.
