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Highlanders become first Kiwi Super Rugby club to begin staff pay cuts

(Photo by Teaukura Moetaua/Getty Images)

The Highlanders have become the first New Zealand Super Rugby franchise to reduce its staff’s pay in the wake of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

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Earlier this week, New Zealand Rugby injected $1.25 million into its five Super Rugby clubs as the competition remains at a standstill after being suspended following seven rounds of action.

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Although the extra $250,000 has been welcomed by the Highlanders, it hasn’t been enough to stop the Dunedin franchise from cutting it costs as it battles to stay afloat with no gate revenue to rely upon.

“Our business, with no product or no content, means no dollars and our reserves have been burnt up pretty quickly,” Highlanders chief executive Roger Clark told Newshub.

“It’s probably more than $500,000 a month to run a Super Rugby club, so we’ve already taken across-the-board 30 percent cuts and we’ve frozen all expenditure.”

The Highlanders’ 30 percent drop in wages follows New Zealand Rugby’s decision to slash its staff’s salaries by 20 percent over the next three months.

The Crusaders are currently consulting with their staff, and the Hurricanes are said to be contemplating their options, while the Chiefs didn’t provide any comment to Newshub.

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Blues chief executive Andrew Hore said that the boost in cash has afforded the Auckland side some breathing space as they decide what their next move will be, but time is a commodity that the Highlanders are seemingly thin on.

Without the revenue of ticket sales, sponsors have become essential contributors to the Highlanders’ coffers, but some of those companies are enduring similar problems to the Forsyth Barr Stadium-based side.

“None of them have cancelled on us,” said Clark told Newshub.

“Some have deferred already, because some of their businesses, like ours, are not getting any money in, so they can’t afford to pay at this stage.”

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While the picture looks dire for the Highlanders and their staff, Clark has vowed to keep the 2015 Super Rugby champions alive beyond this year regardless of whether or not any form of rugby is played.

“We will survive,” said Clark. “We just don’t know in what shape that will be.

“We’re just trying to make sure it’s the best shape we can possibly be in.”

In other news:

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

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