THE FULL CIRCLE OF NPC RUGBY

By Johnny Ringo (Music.Sport.Life)

Super Rugby does not pique the interest of a lot of rugby fans, outside the main Super Rugby centres, like the tribal nature of our wonderful NPC.

Whakarua Park in Ruatoria is unrivalled when it comes to a New Zealand rugby experience, ex-All Black’s Ma’a Nonu and Hosea Gear were there helping end East Coast’s 54-game winless streak against Buller in 2021.

Victoria Square in Westport was once witness to one of the great provincial victories over a touring side when a West Coast-Buller combined side defeated Australia in 1972. Okay, it was pre-NPC but it was the year it was first mooted.

West Coast’s home ground, formerly known as Rugby Park, carries a famous rugby name in former All Blacks manager, President of New Zealand Rugby and coal miner, John Sturgeon.

Meanwhile, on the back of South Canterbury’s record 5 year, 39 game unbeaten run in the Heartland NPC competition and their return to a newly rebuilt Fraser Park, promotion-relegation is once again on the lips of passionate grassroots rugby fans.

At some stage these grounds have also hosted a final in which their home side won the title, memories made for not only the players and coaching team but also the fans, the ex players, the long time supporters, volunteers, whanau, wives, partners, children. The children running the sideline, using the halftime break to mimic their rugby heroes, people they know, players they look up to. These Tamariki want to wear the same colours when they are older.

There has always been nothing more tribal in New Zealand rugby than the NPC no matter the title or format it has employed.

Unfortunately, for much of the past 28 years the NPC has faced the ongoing threat of professionalism brought on, in the Southern Hemisphere, by the advent of “Super” Rugby in 1996.

Not only did it strip the NPC of many of our greatest All Blacks from the past two decades but it swallowed up much of the ever-declining pool of sponsorship and funding. At the heartland level of the NPC this didn’t manifest quite so intensely but it was still noticeable.

There is good news, however, as it appears the love affair with provincial rugby is back on, slowly returning the Premiership and Heartland competitions back to their rightful place as the most popular men’s rugby competitions in New Zealand. The NPC, as mentioned is more tribal than Super Rugby, fans are more passionate and the competition, on the whole, more unpredictable yet rewarding.

But early into rugby’s foray with professionalism the very essence of the NPC was under threat.

The year was 2005 and as the club season was only beginning to get underway, around the country, “open” meetings were being held with the 27 provincial unions that made up the National Provincial Championship(NPC) of New Zealand, at that time.

The NZRU were looking to implement two new competitions, a seemingly radical change to the NPC format. One would contain professional and semi professional teams whilst the other, a heartland competition would be amateur. The old second division would be split down the middle with teams divided between the competitions based on their competitiveness.

The NPC of the time had entrenched itself in the New Zealand psyche for close to thirty years.

As a competition, it had epitomised rugby in New Zealand ever since 1976, its inaugural year, when Bay of Plenty won their first and only division one championship.

In fact the third division, as it was known when the meetings were tabled, hadn’t existed until the competition transformed in 1986 when the second division North and its South Island Equivalent morphed to create three distinct divisions. The First Division remained unchanged, meaning New Zealand now had what were simply known as Division 1, 2 and 3.

The theory behind this change was to remove the line between North and South. This would, it was hoped, produce a more even competition and importantly, teams winning the two lower divisions now gained automatic promotion, replacing the bottom placed team from the division above.

The caveat here is that shortly after rugby had turned professional, in 1996, a Promotion-Relegation match was introduced for the winner of division two making it harder to be promoted to the top tier. With first division unions now having access to higher commercial and sponsorship funding and ultimately more professional players, teams from division two were typically outplayed.

In the first year of the three division format, Wairarapa Bush were a division 1 side and had finished fourth only the year before, Buller were a second division side along with Marlborough while fellow Seddon Shield union, Nelson Bays were entrenched in the third.

Adding to the mix was the formation of a third side from New Zealand’s biggest city, with North Harbour receiving provincial status, joining Powerhouse Auckland and Counties.

In all 28 teams would play in the three division competition with the Central Vikings a joint venture team, of the Hawkes Bay and Manawatu unions lasting two seasons.

Despite having success on the field, with finishes of 2nd (1997) and 1st (1998), promotion to Division 1 never eventuated as financial instability proved the death of the Vikings and the reintroduction of the parent unions back into the second division.

Fast forward again to 2005, meetings were organised up and down the country, facilitated as a process of consultation between the NZRFU and Unions on the new competition structure. Two neighbouring South Island unions Nelson Bays and Marlborough (both 2nd Division at the time) had indicated they were considering a merger with a view to compete in the semi professional championship, the bottom half of the new division one. Despite this no one was expecting what happened next.

The NZRFU were to begin using the move back to two distinct competitions as an opportunity to encourage mergers between smaller unions and used the new Tasman venture as an example.

Some smaller unions were blindsided when, rather than being consulted regarding the new competition, they were instead told of the NZRFU’s preference for them to combine with a neighbouring union. In fact Buller and West Coast officials, sponsors and interested parties attending the meeting (at the aptly named Union Hotel) in Greymouth were left gobsmacked by this sudden “recommendation” and felt a merger would be forced whether they liked it or not.

It didn’t go down well at all. The two unions had over 100 years of rivalry and the oldest interprovincial rugby trophy, the Rundle Cup, was played for between the two. It was said it would be like merging Canterbury and Auckland.

Meanwhile the same thing was playing out in Gisborne where proud unions Poverty Bay and neighbours East Coast now know as Ngati Porou East Coast (NPEC) were facing the same dilemma.

While Buller and West Coast were perennial Division 3 teams, East Coast and Poverty Bay had spent 2005 in the second division, granted East Coast remained winless finishing last. Poverty Bay, however, had won three of their eight games, the same number of wins as Manawatu, a team who had won the first division in 1980 and had once defended the prized Ranfurly Shield 13 times.

Only several years before being asked to merge East Coast won two straight finals in the third division, only accepting promotion after their second victory in 2000. They then had a stellar 2001 in the second division, the fairytale falling just short losing to neighbours Hawkes Bay 30-27 in the final.

Another consideration, either lost on the NZRFU or ignored, was the distance and terrain covering the two areas. From the southern end of the Poverty Bay Union to the northern reaches of the East Coast at Hicks Bay the distance is around 250 km, while the two unions from the South Island could face a drive of around 550 km, north to south, a similar distance than that of Wellington to the southern end of the Counties Manukau provincial union.

There was robust debate at the Greymouth meeting with the NZRU listing facilities in the unions as the major issue, one being the difficulty for Buller to completely fence their home ground at Victoria Square, while both unions would need major improvements in their changing room facilities. The crowd felt the NZRU position was inflexible although one moment may have weakened the NZRU’s confidence.

Amongst the pedantic “rules” being tabled that unions needed to meet to remain in the new Heartland competition, was a stipulation that each changing room have no fewer than eight shower-heads and three basin-sinks. The locals were left with a smirk on their faces when it was pointed out by an attendee that at that time Christchurch, the seat of the famous Crusaders franchise did not meet the criteria either despite hosting games of test match status.
The meeting concluded with unions still nervous about their future and the NZRU heading back to the drawing board with a need to include all of the current teams in their plans.

A reprieve had finally been earned and fourteen teams would take part in the newly minted professional NPC including the brand new Tasman union. After a round robin and cross over games seven teams would play for the premiership and seven for the championship.

The new amateur NPC or Heartland competition would contain twelve teams divided into two pools of six. The top three from each pool would then play crossover matches to qualify for the Meads playoffs while the bottom three from each pool would do the same squaring off for the Lochore Cup.

Both professional and amateur competitions have since had minor modifications and on a whole teams have been competitive, however, there is one thing that has always been missing.

Imagine South Canterbury being able to get back to their glory days, Whanganui keeping their better players instead of losing them to nearby division one provinces.
A promotion-relegation between the divisions is one of the most talked about topics on social media when the South Canterbury reign is mentioned. It was the same when Whanganui were proving near unbeatable.

The ability of teams who have had dominant eras in the Heartland competition to gain promotion is still nonexistent.

NZRU have a prime opportunity to spread the game into the heartland provinces by providing the promotion carrot allowing them to attract semi professional players and keep others who go elsewhere for the same opportunities. Whether this creates a further injection of interest into the NPC will only be answered by giving the chance for the NPC to go full circle.

Despite this, there is one thing which will never change and that is the NPC, at all levels, remains the true lifeblood of New Zealand rugby. Just imagine if you would a heartland side back at the top table.