Manawatu ready for a fight

Legal action is likely if the Manawatu Turbos are culled from the premier rugby competition next month.

The Save-The-Turbos steering group has taken prominent legal advice, independent of the Manawatu Rugby Union.

Steering group chairman Grant Smith wouldn't disclose their identity but stressed a potential challenge to the New Zealand Rugby Union wasn't being pursued by the Manawatu Rugby Union.

"We have taken legal advice and it would be a community challenge," he said.

"It's bigger than just rugby."

He didn't reveal the grounds for a challenge, but he also could not believe the union will press on against the weight of public opinion.

While rugby unions are reluctant to take on their parent body that doles out the annual grants, there is nothing stopping sponsors and stadium owners doing so.

He is confident that Manawatu will meet the criteria now the financial situation appears to have been turned around.

But it does concern him that there is no independent evaluation made of each union's finances; the NZRU does it.

Smith said if Manawatu was turned into a rugby wasteland, it would affect peripheral activities like the Sport and Rugby Institute at Massey University and the Rugby World Cup games in Palmerston North.

"It is a massive undertaking to chop four teams," Smith told the Manawatu Standard.

Meanwhile, Manawatu chief executive John Knowles says he expects to have raised $330,000 from the Save The Turbos campaign over the past month. That includes about $40,000 still to come in from pledges.

The accounts are still being reconciled, but his prediction is that the union will be solvent and is over its cashflow problems. The accounts will be sent to the NZRU by next Tuesday and he expects their auditors to visit Palmerston North.

Knowles also revealed that many of the premier unions weren't happy about signing this year's Air New Zealand Cup competition agreement in early April.

The agreement gives the NZRU the right to change the competition as they see fit, "to allocate teams to a different format".

Manawatu were forced to agree "not to challenge the reasonableness of the ranking system, but will have the right to challenge the accuracy of the raw data inputted into the assessable criteria".

If Manawatu hadn't signed – they did at the last minute – they would probably have been thrown out of the competition, given their acute financial situation.

"We weren't comfortable with it but we went with it," Knowles said. "There wasn't a lot of choice, we didn't want to be the odd ones out."

It is understood North Harbour never did sign it, that they wanted to have the right to determine their own future.

"But we were on the bottom of the pecking order," Knowles said.

Manawatu had also just been to the NZRU for help in the form of an advance payment of a grant.

Wanganui Rugby Union chairman Dave Hoskin met NZRU emissary Buck Anderson in Wanganui yesterday to see what was being offered as inducements to enter the proposed division one.

Hoskin would report the details to his clubs and board before making a decision. "It doesn't add up at the moment," he said. "But we've left the door open."

Hoskin did stress the Heartland champion had a policy of not bringing in players from outside the province.

The NZRU were also to meet the other promotion contender, Mid-Canterbury, in Ashburton today.

- © Fairfax NZ News