Snedden: Touring fans to thank for RWC
Martin Snedden remembers something much more positive though, and not just through the rose-tinted lens of a Kiwi. The man charged with making this year’s biggest sporting event a success believes the touring Lions fans six years ago played a huge part in New Zealand landing the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
With a little over 18 weeks until the All Blacks kick off the opening game against Tonga on September 9, the Rugby New Zealand 2011 chief executive has not forgotten the 20,000-plus supporters from these parts that helped deliver this global rugby extravaganza to his shores.
“That’s not an underestimation of what happened,” Snedden told The Irish Examiner on a visit to Dublin last weekend. “That Lions tour in 2005 was huge for us. It was probably the biggest event New Zealand’s staged before this World Cup. It came at a perfect time for our bid as it wasn’t being voted on until after the Lions tour.
“We were not seen as front runners in that process but the NZRU was deemed to have done a good job hosting the tour and I think the key to its success was the touring fans. They were so fantastic, they lifted the whole tour.
“Even though there was some pretty controversial stuff on the field, the fans were just unbelievably good and I think New Zealanders saw that and responded to it and that lifted us as well.
“The organisation of the tour went well but the vibrancy of the British and Irish fans lifted it to something pretty special and I think it did influence the outcome of the bid.
“So that was fun, and there were about 20,000 travelling fans. We’re looking at about 85,000 fans coming for the World Cup but that (Lions tour) is an indication to us of just how much fun this thing is going to be.”
Snedden has had to deliver a tournament in trying circumstances, against the backdrop of a global recession, sniping at home about the potential economic benefits and the trauma of the devastating earthquake that struck Christchurch in February. Yet the RWC boss is seeing the host nation begin to emerge from the gloom of its darkest hour.
“Christchurch was a shock to the country and it has created a more sombre feeling around the country, not just about Rugby World Cup but life in general,” he said. “That’s starting to dissipate, other than in Christchurch itself and so the focus is now coming much more back onto the Rugby World Cup.”
So with things looking up again and just four months to go, is it too much of a stretch to think Snedden can just sit back, relax and wait for the big kick-off? “Yeah, sort of but not quite. Four months to go and it’s in pretty good shape.
“I’m happy with the way things are sitting. The Christchurch situation was obviously a major issue for us – only a small issue comparative to what the city itself is facing, it’s in a pretty bad state at the moment.”
And the 6.3-magnitude quake of February 22 has not been the only issue threatening to derail World Cup optimism in New Zealand. Only last week the New Zealand Herald newspaper released a survey proclaiming the tournament would operate at a NZ$500m (€269m) deficit, a conclusion Snedden described in a counter article in the Sunday Star Times last weekend as “a distorted and misleading presentation”.
In Dublin, Snedden reinforced the case for the defence, saying: “As with any major event, there’s always a debate as to whether it’s worth the cost of it and there’s a debate happening in New Zealand right now.
“Yes, the Rugby World Cup costs a lot of money (NZ$1200m (€647m). Part of that money is just straight, operational, for running a 48-match tournament. That costs money and it’s a one-off operational thing.
“Then there’s a whole lot of money that’s been spent on improvements to rugby stadia and transport hubs that’s going to be there for decades after Rugby World Cup and there’s a long-term benefit to those.
“There’s an economic benefit in terms of international visitors and there is a whole lot of intangible stuff. When you’re a small country like us at the other end of the world, having a vehicle for creating an international profile for a lot of places that we are associated with normally and do business with is an opportunity that I don’t know how you’d put a figure on.”
Understandably, Snedden, a former Test cricketer and boss of New Zealand Cricket, admitted to experiencing some emotional highs and lows in the build-up to the tournament.
“I go through a bit of a rollercoaster. As we get closer to the tournament, of course there’s a bit of anxiety and nervousness about it, it’s a live event and there are things around live events you can’t control. And that’s the beauty of it as well as the rest of it. There’s all of that volatility around and that’s one of the attractions of the whole thing.”
The new Otago Stadium, where Ireland meet Italy on October 2
“It’s two months away from completion now, so it’s dead on track and has no question marks over it. Ireland play Italy there in the final pool match. It’s a fully enclosed roof, not retractable, permanent. There’s a clear, plasticky substance they use for the roof and it’s pretty impressive. Because it’s Dunedin and it’s in the south it’s going to be chilly outside but a hell of a lot warmer inside the stadium. No wind, no rain, ideal conditions for rugby.”
“It does help the thinking somewhat ... I played for long enough (in the 1980s) to be aware of what it’s like to be in the middle of the international arena. Then again, my previous job to this, I was running New Zealand Cricket, running the New Zealand cricket team and the international programme that we had every year, so in many ways that experience, being far more recent, is of more value to me. But it’s nice to have that background of international playing.”
“When we started the project it was before the World Cup in France and the teams tended to base themselves in one or two places. So we thought, ‘okay, that must be what they’d like’. But, then, after the French World Cup, we went to the teams and said, ‘what do you think?’ and they said, ‘no, keep us moving’. There wasn’t any team that said, ‘we want to stay for three weeks anywhere. New Zealand’s a small country and getting up and down is not a major issue.”
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