Sav's Sidelines: Husband-wife duo awarded life memberships on same day
Sav's Sidelines - the weekly column that looks at all things Southland sport, from the grassroots to the professional ranks.
In this week’s Sav’s Sidelines I point to an important meeting at NZR HQ next week on the back of what’s been the most even and entertaining NPC season in many years. I also salute a husband-and-wife combo who were awarded life memberships to a rugby club on the same day, and I look at the Southland winners and losers from the Commonwealth Games shake up.
Husband-wife duo awarded life memberships on same day…
As far as stories of life memberships go Angela and Colin Molloy’s is a pretty special one.
The pair met at the Star Rugby Club 35-odd years ago.
Colin at the time was playing for the club’s senior team and Angela’s brother-and-law Shaun Flynn - a long-time player, coach and now Star life member - was a team mate of Colin’s.
“We used to go and watch Shaun play and that’s when I met Colin,” Angela recalls of her early days at Star.
Angela herself then started playing for the club’s women’s team alongside sister Paulene, and has remained connected to the club ever since.
Angela and Colin have since married, had their now 25-year-old son Ethan go through the playing ranks at Star, and three decades on from meeting they are a couple of key pillars at the club.
The impressive volunteer double-act was recognised on Wednesday night when the Molloys were both named life members at Star Rugby Club’s 2024 AGM.
Their ever-growing list of volunteer work for the club is long and varied.
Colin first joined Star as five-year-old schoolboy player, and then played for the under-23 team after his high school days, before a lengthy stint in the club’s senior team.
He has since coached in the schoolboy ranks and with club’s Senior B team and is the current team manager of the club’s premier team.
Amongst all of that has been a host of odd jobs around the club that probably have gone unnoticed by most.
For Angela, following her playing days, she has gone on to hold many volunteer roles.
It included a decade as secretary and treasurer of the club’s junior committee, and long stints helping with its important Housie fundraising, on the senior committee where she is the current vice president, and plenty of Saturday’s either in the kitchen or behind the bar serving.
Angela played a key role in helping reestablish a senior women’s team at the club this year.
She said it wasn’t until someone started to read out what she had done at Star, as part of the life member nomination process, that it dawned on her the extent of her involvement.
“One, I thought; ‘shit I’ve got old’. Two, I thought; ‘now I know where all my time has gone,” she joked.
The pair are proud to be included in a rare group of life members at a club that has a 136-year history.
“It wasn’t something that was in my mind every time I was doing anything, thinking; ‘I’m going to be a life member one day, you just done it, because that’s what’s needed done.”
To add to it all the couple also opened their doors this year and provided a place for prop Jack Sexton to stay when he made the move to Invercargill to play for both Star and the Southland Stags.
Jack’s now like a second son to the Molloys.
On top of the Molloy’s life memberships Andrew McHugh was also named a life member of Star on Wednesday - one of the youngest to be handed the honour.
McHugh joined the Star Rugby Club’s under-21 team in 1998 before spending two years in the club’s B team and then a lengthy playing stint with the premier team as a player.
He stepped straight from playing into the team manager’s role.
McHugh is now the club’s president. Adding to the family theme to this story Andrew’s mother Heather is also part of the committee and his brother Mark is another long-time player and current assistant coach.
Further funding cuts loom, despite NPC's rising…
The ink is drying on what was the most even and entertaining NPC competition seen in many years.
The rugby public’s decade long narrative around the NPC’s looming death shifted throughout the 2024 NPC.
People have started to again appreciate the 100-plus year traditional tribalism attached to provincial rugby that is hard to be manufactured inside a marketing department meeting.
And provincial rugby is a good watch. There’s been a close to 15% increase in attendance across the board this year.
The country’s Dux of rugby - Wayne Smith - acknowledges that entertaining spectacle.
Smith went as gone as far as saying the style of play in the NPC is where the game as a whole needs to get to.
“If you want a blueprint for New Zealand rugby, that’s what you’re seeing. It’s bringing crowds back. There’s very little kicking, a lot of ball movement and it’s a great watch. It’s shining light in rugby at the moment,” Smith told the NZ Herald.
“Looking to the future you’d imagine laws are going to change. They’ll legislate for the NPC style game to be played so there’s fewer rucks, scrum resets, fewer penalty kicks into touch.”
But despite the queue of people handing out bouquets to the NPC competition at the moment, a cloud still hovers over provincial unions.
Provincial union CEOs and board chairs have been summoned to NZ Rugby HQ next week.
A raft of topics is expected to be addressed, including the game’s financial sustainability, an update on the findings of a review of the men’s pathway and academies, and potential proposals for 2026 and beyond.
If we are blunt about the situation, rugby’s governing body - New Zealand Rugby - is struggling. Those struggles are being handed on to the provinces.
The Silver Lake deal, which was supposed to give New Zealand Rugby the financial leg up it needed, is starting to look more like a ball and chain for the sport.
In 2022 New Zealand Rugby signed a deal with Siver Lake - an American private equity company.
Silver Lake invested $200m into New Zealand Rugby for a minority ownership in NZR’s commercial arm - NZRC.
Of that, $7.5m was earmarked for rugby clubs, and $20m to provincial unions in what should be - let’s be honest - best described as a bribe.
Rugby Southland was handed $1 million as part of the deal, and a further $370,000 was spread throughout Southland’s 26 rugby clubs as another sweetener in the deal.
It meant for the first time in over a decade Rugby Southland’s finances were in a healthy state with $1.4m in cash reserves.
But there’s a problem - a long-term problem.
The Silver Lake deal appears to have turned out - to date at least - to be a flop.
Provincial unions are now being handed funding cuts by New Zealand Rugby as a result.
Across the board provincial unions faced a $1.8m funding reduction this year and that will grow to over $3m next year.
The already tight belt is now tightening further in the provinces.
So where has the Silver Lake deal gone wrong?
The attraction for NZR to Silver Lake wasn’t just the initial cash investment. It was believed Silver Lake would bring with them the no-how and connections to help grow New Zealand Rugby’s commercial revenue.
NZR forecast that it could add an additional $76m in “New Business Initiatives”.
That hasn’t happened.
One of those new business initiatives was the launch of a new content streaming platform called NZR+ which would produce and deliver unique content and the quest to gather data and subscriptions.
However, it appears the growth has been slow - much slower than expected.
What was viewed as a key revenue generator is understood to have actually proved a costly exercise to produce.
Silver Lake, from next year, will start to take a dividend from its investment in NZR Commercial - said to be an annual $20m-plus annual dividend. That’s problematic is revenue cannot be increased.
The messy situation appeared to be further highlighted this week with the resignation of NZR Commercial CEO Craig Fenton.
Fenton stepped into the role in January with big wraps from some.
The Kiwi had previously worked as Google’s managing director for the UK and Ireland.
It’s understood Silver Lake was key in his appointment but when Fenton’s resignation was announced this week it was confirmed Fenton and NZR executives were not in agreement over various matters.
“Craig and NZRC have agreed that Craig’s vision of change and approach to driving it are not fully aligned with the organisation.
“Craig and NZRC have mutually agreed that Craig will leave the company,” NZR stated in its media release.
A lot of happenings at management and board level at New Zealand Rugby can pass by as white noise, grabbing little attention amongst most in the rugby community.
But it feels there’s now a financial game of chess playing out and the next move or two looms as very important for those operating in the provincial game.
Time will tell.
The scaled back Commonwealth Games…
It’s been revealed which sports will or won’t be part of a scaled back Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2026 with some obvious winners and losers from a Southland point of view.
Included in the sports axed is sevens rugby which naturally would have again provided Southland with its best medal hope in two-time Olympic Games gold medallist Alena Saili.
Benji Culhane would have shaped as a strong chance to line up for the men’s Black Sticks team, but hockey has also been shelved for 2026.
Track cycling will remain for Glasgow in 2026 providing an opening for the likes Tom Sexton and Nicole Shields who have just come off an Olympics campaign.
Although there won’t be a road race in Glasgow which Corbin Strong competed in in Paris.
Athletics is the pillar of events like the Commonwealth Games and not surprisingly has remained in the culling of sports, which is good news for javelin thrower Tori Peeters.
Netball is one of the few team sports to remain which will provide Southern Steel midcourter Kate Heffernan and others a target in two years’ time.
The inclusion bowls and para bowls is also good news for the likes of Sheldon Bagrie-Howley and Julie O’Connell.
2024 Commonwealth Games sports:
Athletics and Para Athletics, Swimming and Para Swimming, Artistic Gymnastics, Track Cycling and Para Track Cycling, Netball, Weightlifting and Para Powerlifting, Boxing, Judo, Bowls and Para Bowls, 3x3 Basketball and 3x3 Wheelchair Basketball.
Blast from the Past…
In 2012 Southland rower Storm Uru teamed up with Peter Taylor to claim a bronze medal in the lightweight men’s double sculls at the Olympic Games in London. Take a trip down memory lane and relieve the moment when the Waihopai Rowing Club member found himself on an Olympic Games podium.
