After Sunday’s alert level changes, round two of Super Rugby Aotearoa is becoming the weekend of upheaval for the competition – and national officials are bracing for more.
With the Government’s latest movements, there will be no fans in Hamilton for the Chiefs’ opening match against the Highlanders while the Crusaders-Hurricanes game has been delayed a day.
That’s all before even mentioning the Cambridge Blues who are now based south of Bombay Hills due to the Level 3 lockdown back home.
The Blues will be based at a specially built lodge, which usually houses our leading Olympic athletes when they train in the Waikato town.
Head of professional rugby for New Zealand Rugby Chris Lendrum said they were ready to spring into action as soon as news of the new alert levels was put in place.
“We always planned for this situation, knew there was a chance of this happening in this year’s competition so contingencies are in place.”
A stone's throw away from the lodge is Hautapu Rugby Club for the Blues to train at this week for their bye round before they head home, if they're allowed, this Sunday.
Further south, the Crusaders have a financial lifeline by shifting their game to Sunday afternoon. If the rest of country reverts back to Level 1 by then, crowds will be able to attend unlike the originally-scheduled Saturday match which stood no chance.
The news isn’t as good for the Chiefs, though, who will take the hit on Friday night.
Lendrum said there were thoughts of a potential Sunday double-header but the logistics proved too difficult.
“It’s something we considered off the bat,” he said.
“We spoke to our partners at Sky and it become clear pretty quickly we couldn’t get two games away on Sunday.”
It means the Chiefs will host their first game of the season in an empty venue – a sacrifice club CEO Michael Collins said they understand.
“We realise it's bigger than rugby,” Collins said.
“We've got a lot of loyal supporters and commercial partners in the South Auckland area — they're hurting at the moment.”
Should Level 2 or 3 extend past this week, teams and their balance sheets will be hit hard as they still wear the costs of hosting a game, but without ticket sales.
“It's a vast amount of money [to lose], a big sum,” Collins said.
SHARE ME