Rugby Southland’s $730k surplus

Rugby Southland has posted a staggering $730,000 surplus for 2020, although its chairman is warning to not be blinded by ‘‘the big number’’.

The $730,000 surplus was announced at Rugby Southland’s AGM on Monday night.

Rugby Southland chairman Bernie McKone said the surplus had come on the back of the organisation tapping into the Government’s wage subsidy during Covid-19 last year and also support from Sport New

Zealand funding.

The organisation was able to claim $201,000 through the wage subsidy scheme last year.

Staff and players also took a pay cut, while the organisation restructured to help with efficiency and cut duplication within Rugby Southland staffing.

It has included contracting out some work rather than appointing fulltime employees for certain tasks.

Rugby Southland had budgeted for about a 50 per cent drop in sponsorship revenue because of Covid-19, but McKone was pleased that they ended up with better than expected support in that area.

When asked if Rugby Southland needed the wage subsidy, and that Sport New Zealand support, given it has been able to post a $730,000 surplus, McKone said sport would have been decimated if they had not accepted that Government help.

McKone said the $730,000 surplus had meant they were able to replace reserves that had been depleted over the years.

He pointed to a decade ago when the organisation was $1 million in debt and could not pay its bills.

He said Rugby Southland was now finally in a position where it had recovered financially.

‘‘We are not out of the woods yet though,’’ McKone said.

While the $730,000 surplus was a significant boost for Rugby Southland, its chairman said it was forecasting a $170,000 loss for 2021.

The reality was that at the moment it still cost more to run rugby, in a normal year, than what was being brought in, McKone said.

‘‘There’s work done.’’

In recent years Rugby Southland has been the lowest spending national provincial championship province in terms of player payments.

While it might be tempting for some, McKone said they would not be boosting the Stags still to be player budget on the back of that $730,000 surplus.

He said he had looked at the numbers and felt spending extra would not necessarily mean they would get better results. But what it could do was again put the organisation into a financial hole.

The focus was on building pathways within the province and McKone said they were already starting to see some success from that work.

He praised the efforts of the staff and the way coach Dale MacLeod had led the Stags.

McKone felt they had turned a corner in terms of getting the public back on board after some challenging years.