D'Arcy Waldegrave: The issue rugby is facing

The fish heads have met. And will meet again. And again, and again. Then possibly, hopefully, maybe they will arrive at conclusion that will rescue the game of rugby from itself.  

On Thursday NZR met with key rugby stakeholders to start hammering out a plan which will, all things going well and good, beat some financial sense into the national game. As it stands, the game will die if the status quo remains. The key question, begging a rapid and brutal answer is this: earn more or spend less?   

Based on conversations with the boss of the New Zealand Rugby Players Association Rob Nichol, the answer is simple. The game needs to stop spending money on things it can't afford, on things it doesn't need.  

Bog standard budgeting really.   

Disclaimer: this is plainly a very simplistic assertion, from a simple man who is not neck deep in the fiscal weeds of running an enormous and important machine.   

The issue the game faces is this. Every character around the summit table needs a haircut and a shave, but no-one wants to be the first on the chair when Sweeney Todd opens for business. No one wants to face the prospect of a skinhead or a mullet or a cutthroat blade shave for the benefit of all.   

The game isn't poverty stricken as it stands, but the trajectory, a favourite line in NZR board-speak, is boring in and down. Collapsed scrum, broken necks.   

Like in most households, the cost-of-living crisis is real, and as tempting as it is to put it all on the plastic and worry about it later, i.e. the ill-advised but impossibly difficult to ignore Silverlake debacle, this is a short-term and fraught process, destined for failure.  

I get the distinct feeling that David Kirk knows what has to happen and this current series of board room exchanges is merely lip service before the buck is forcibly stopped. Right there.