Former All Blacks captain David Kirk.
I would not be the first person to underestimate David Kirk.
He first came into my orbit in 1984 when I was a rookie sports reporter for the Gold Coast Bulletin, assigned to cover the visiting All Blacks’ midweek tour match against Queensland Country.
It helped that I was a young Kiwi reasonably versed in All Blacks folklore before my family moved to Australia. But I’d largely lost contact with rugby in New Zealand and, in my mind, All Blacks halfbacks were cut from the tough mercurial mould of a Sid Going.
But Kirk interested me. He was two years younger than me and we were born in the same city. I too had played halfback, although obviously not with his panache. But I’d never seen him play before and I remember being shocked at how small and vulnerable he looked as the All Blacks ran out at Carrara.
He was the understudy to Dave Loveridge and then Andy Donald back then and I feared for his physical wellbeing, even against the no-name Queensland County forwards.
They were unnecessary misgivings.
The All Blacks won 88-0 that day (they would have topped the ton had five-point tries been around then) and Kirk had a field day showcasing his quick and nimble game, which was to become a focal point of John Hart’s Auckland team just a season later and then the all-conquering All Blacks of 1987.
I learned that afternoon never to sell Kirk short. He was tough and he was smart.
It was a lesson the late Andy Haden and others, including New Zealand Rugby’s top brass, were also to learn over the years since.
In 1986, Kirk was shamefully ostracised by a Haden-led group of senior players who resented his moral stand on the Cavaliers tour of South Africa.
Footage of Haden and others physically forming an impenetrable ring of players to prevent Kirk joining them during a team talk in a test match injury break remains one of the most jarring All Blacks images of that era.
Kirk, of course, had the last laugh, ultimately leading New Zealand to our first-ever World Cup triumph.
Then, just like that, he was gone. Retired from the international game at 26 and off to England to pursue a Rhodes Scholarship.
Along with occasional media columns, his connection back to the game has largely been through his long-standing tenure as chair of the New Zealand Rugby Players Association (NZRPA), formed in 1999 after the game went professional four years earlier.
His service at the NZRPA has been sandwiched between high-profile corporate roles in New Zealand and Australia and creating his own successful investment company.
Sports Insider will make a declaration of interest here. It was I who convinced Kirk to first write in the media about rugby back in 1995. I wanted a weekly columnist in the newly-formed national paper, the Sunday Star-Times, who could write more deeply and intelligently about the game than the typical former player.
His columns quickly became compulsory reading, prompting major international titles like London’s the Times and the Telegraph, France’s L’Equipe, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Herald to regularly seek his writings on the game.
Kirk’s media interest topped out in 2005 with his appointment as boss of Australia’s Fairfax Media, which owned the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne’s The Age and a host of Kiwi assets.
He again displayed his strategic mettle, spearheading the almost $700 million purchase of TradeMe with the intention of using its profits to fund journalism in Australia and New Zealand.
It was the smartest corporate move in the media sector in years but for a disastrous reverse takeover by Rural Press, which ended up killing the Fairfax company (and a bunch of New Zealand media with it).
Kirk was equally impressive during the Silver Lake negotiation period when a New Zealand Rugby (NZR) board, drunk on hubris and using the Covid pandemic as an opportune smokescreen, tried to railroad through a premature deal with the American private equity company.
The players were attacked on several fronts but the association made NZR pay dearly for its arrogance, ultimately helping secure a better agreement while seeing off a covert plan to cut the wages of the All Blacks and the country’s other professional players.
All of this leaves this columnist with some renewed optimism now we know Kirk is the chair-elect of the new nine-person board appointed to lead NZR, following the Pilkington Review’s damning findings on the national union’s governance model.
It was this column that first suggested Kirk would be an asset for a new board. “Your country needs you, Kirky,” I wrote on November 7. Then there was a quiet tip it might happen and without naming him, I hinted at it a few weeks later.
But I was resigned to petty politics hobbling Kirk, especially the provincial unions, who still need to ratify the new board and its chair with a secret ballot vote next week.
A number of those unions resented Kirk’s public questioning of the original Silver Lake deal, some out of fear it might stop the big payout from head office many were so eager to bank, no matter what.
Now those same unions are enduring funding cuts as the promises of Silver Lake and the NZR board of the time that so zealously pursued it are ringing hollow.
Adding to a volatile mix is that the provincial unions are stewing over what they always feared – a loss of control over who the three directors with provincial union board experience are.
They didn’t get who they wanted on the interim board and don’t regard those successful applicants who did fulfil those criteria as their strongest or most capable candidates.
They also believe that NZR’s release of the make-up of the board and its chair-elect before next Wednesday’s vote is a deliberate ploy to see off any rearguard action from the unions at the ballot box.
But could that be enough for them to play the last card they have? Blocking ratification of the new board and its chair?
We shall see.
But for now, there is hope that our national game will actually undertake the “significant change” the Pilkington Review so stridently called for.
Kirk’s arrival comes at a time when brave decision-making is required, including how the board successfully balances the running of the community and professional arms of the game.
A resetting of the board relationship with executive management (and the rugby public) is required, while many of us are still baffled over why NZR needs two CEOs on substantial wages at a time when the national union is bleeding money.
Who does what, and with how much money? And whose agenda wins when there’s conflict?
Then there’s what to do with Silver Lake, the so-called rocket booster that has turned into an anchor.
And where the All Blacks fit in the inevitable shake-up looming over pro rugby (Middle East- or otherwise inspired).
It’s a monster challenge for anybody to take on.
But, like another former All Blacks teammate, Jock Hobbs, who was the right man at the right time in the mid-1990s when the then New Zealand Rugby Union last needed rescuing, David Edward Kirk is the man for the job.
The provincial unions won’t be happy and there is a feeling the make-up of the new NZR board is a victory for the players’ association (the appointment of Keven Mealamu being another example).
They fret that the board will be more Super Rugby-focused than NPC-driven but Sports Insider believes the inaugural Board Appointments Panel has done a good job.
We now look set for Kirk to lead a board that will also include the man who has chaired the International Cricket Council for the past four years, Auckland-based Greg Barclay.
Like Kirk, Barclay is a straight shooter, seen to have high integrity and an international perspective on sport that is grounded in realism.
That trait was seen in a departing interview he gave London’s Telegraph in which he warned the sport is “sleepwalking to a cliff edge” over dwindling broadcast rights markets.
The former lawyer made headlines last week when he condemned cricket’s global calendar as “a mess” that will be “almost impossible” to untangle.
Barclay, who stepped aside as ICC chair this month for India’s Jay Shah, told the Telegraph that the game is ruled by “self-interest” and warned of major challenges ahead for the sport.
Effectively, Barclay is concerned about looming consequences for smaller cricket nations through potential reductions in ICC broadcast revenue from its world events.
A growing conflict between the domestic and international games through franchise leagues increasingly clashing with bilateral series only added to the tension and potential on future funding.
“It is changing, and trying to get an understanding of what that change looks like, what it means for the game, seems to be a bit of a battle, because the problem is that everybody’s used to only ever seeing broadcast revenues rise,” he said.
Barclay believes a “correction” is inevitable in the international broadcast market – “[but] is it going to be a short, sharp one ... or is it going to be a long, slow one?” – adding that the game also can’t rely on big international streaming companies to write big cheques.
“People have been saying that for 10 years now. New Zealand Cricket had a deal with Amazon, but it didn’t work, so I don’t think they’re going to be the white knight that everybody is anticipating,” Barclay said, echoing the sentiments of Sports Insider’s recent series on the streamers.
He said the sport had become used to bloated broadcasting fees that could not be maintained.
If some of these battles sound similar to what rugby faces, Barclay is a handy man to have in tow.
It’s difficult to argue with his assessment of international cricket, and his realism and pragmatism is a welcome beacon in professional sport, where smoke and mirrors is increasingly the go-to play for senior administrators.
The straight shooting of the likes of Kirk and Barclay contrasted vividly with an interview on Newstalk ZB this week with NZR CEO Mark Robinson.
His early-week chat with Heather du Plessis-Allan was described to me by several people as “a train wreck”. Essentially, Robinson dodged every major question thrown at him as an increasingly bemused du Plessis-Allan tried to make sense of it all.
Eventually, she gave up and mercifully ended things, putting listeners out of their misery but none the wiser on any of the major issues confronting the game.
It will be impossible not to watch how the dynamic between Kirk and Robinson unfolds from here.
The chairman-chief executive relationship is critical to navigating the myriad challenges the community and professional games face.
Before he was chief executive, Robinson was a board member and deeply involved in the enthusiastic play for Silver Lake’s private equity investment. When he became chief executive, he was a strong backer of then chairman Brent Impey, who tried to conduct negotiations with an iron fist, only to meet resistance from Kirk.
That was enough for journalists to probe Robinson on his relationship with Kirk at a stand-up interview after the board was revealed this week.
“My relationship with David is fine,” came the reply.
Popcorn anybody?
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