Hapless Highlanders need more bravehearts

What is going on in Dunedin? More to the point, do the good folk of the southern outpost realise that if they continue to shun the Highlanders, the day is fast approaching when they won't have a team left in town to snub?

Then there's the off-field shenanigans. After Fetu'u Vainikolo became the latest in a lengthening line of men behaving badly from the franchise, the question has to be asked: do they have a discipline problem in Dunedin?

These aren't exactly halcyon days for Otago rugby, and Friday night's defeat to the Hurricanes in Wellington - yet another "close but no cigar" result for the spirited southerners - won't have helped matters.

It's already looking like a long old haul for 2009.

There are certainly some major issues at play here, and it's hard not to feel sorry for likeable Otago/ Highlanders CEO Richard Reid, who has done extremely well to complete a $1-million financial turnaround over the past year. Right now, that must feel like a drop in the ocean when he looks at what's in front of him.

For a good while there has been speculation that the Highlanders and Dunedin are an increasingly uncomfortable fit. But tradition, and geography, dictates that the southern half of the South Island deserves a Super 14 franchise, and thus far any thoughts of change have been resisted.

But the sight of just 5000 paying customers at last weekend's season opener against the Brumbies at Carisbrook must have had the alarm bells ringing. How can you run a professional rugby side on crowds that pathetic?

Does a city that engenders such apathy even deserve a team?

Now it pains me to say this, because Dunedin's the place I call home, but if something doesn't change, and soon, the NZRU will surely have to consider the future of this franchise. As it is there are major issues over home- grown talent, and when you can't even make it pay its way, well, Houston, you have a problem.

This, after all, is a business and at some stage the NZRU will have to make some hard commercial decisions.

Yet Reid is adamant it isn't all doom and gloom in the south.

He concedes the opening-round crowd was small, but reckons that's nothing a few wins and the arrival of the city's student population won't fix. Plus the new stadium, which has one more major hurdle to clear, has the potential for major spinoffs.

To be fair, the Highlanders are being proactive. This year they're taking two matches to Invercargill, and one to Palmerston North, which is not only ambitious and historic, but also innovative. They're also staging a rock concert after their next game against the Crusaders in a bid to offer more value for the paying fans' buck.

But Reid says smaller crowds are a fact of life of the population base in Dunedin (he equates getting 15,000 along to Carisbrook as being like the Blues drawing 180,000) and, as a result, reckons the NZRU's financial model needs a rethink. At the moment the Highlanders' only Super 14 income is from gate money. That just isn't fair from where Reid sits, and he says he'll be calling for that to change.

By the way, he doesn't think there's a discipline problem, despite appearances. He says he's "very comfortable" with team protocols, and says you "can't hold players' hands in their own time".

Right now, appearances may be deceiving in Dunedin, but they're also worrying. Surely it's time for the blue-and-gold faithful to show their support by simply showing up.

Have you been staying away from the Highlanders'home games? Why? Post your comments below.

- © Fairfax NZ News