ICC boss and former All Blacks Captain contest NZ Rugby board

By Liam Napier

Outgoing International Cricket Council chairman Greg Barclay and former All Blacks captain Taine Randell are among the applicants for the revamped New Zealand Rugby board.

The Herald understands that Barclay received multiple approaches, both from within and outside New Zealand Rugby, to apply for the soon-to-be-formed board since the scathing Pilkington review at the start of this year.

Barclay, an Auckland-based commercial lawyer by trade, finishes his two-term, four-year stint as ICC chairman at the end of November and is understood to have accepted the invitation to apply for the nine-person NZR board.

Having served on the ICC board for a decade, in cricket’s highly charged political landscape, Barclay is a vastly experienced administrator. He is seen as someone who could navigate change and leverage existing commercial relationships from the global cricket scene.

While he lacks specific rugby experience there are parallels between the wide-ranging issues the sport is confronting, from funding the game to participation, and those NZ Cricket tackled when Barclay started his administrative career as Northern Districts chairman in 2012.

At that juncture, as the arrival of Twenty20 changed the face of the sport, NZ Cricket overhauled its structure after agreeing to a wide-ranging governance review that ushered in a new independent board with separation from the provinces.

Barclay, as a New Zealand Cricket director since 2012, helped push through transformative change that lifted NZC from a near insolvent state to a period in which all national teams significantly boosted their global ranking, the Black Caps gained improved scheduling through the future tours programme, and New Zealand pocketed a healthy dividend by co-hosting the men’s 2015 World Cup.

The Herald understands that Randell, the former All Blacks loose forward who played 51 tests, including 27 as captain, from 1995 to 2002, is another applicant.

Since retiring Randell has served four years on the Hawke’s Bay rugby board.

In business, Randell has been a director in Kahungunu Asset Holding, which includes a stake in the Fiordland Lobster Company, the country’s largest exporter of live crayfish, for the last decade.

After extending the deadline to last Friday, NZ Rugby received around 130 board applications. That number will be whittled down to 25. Interviews commence from November 25 to 29, with the expectation of establishing a new board by mid-December.

The Pilkington review stated that NZ Rugby’s constitution and governance is not fit for purpose.

Seven of the existing board - Ajit Balasingham, deputy chair Bailey Mackey, Rowena Davenport, Mark Hutton, Catherine Savage, Stu Mather and Wayne Young - have reapplied for their roles.

Dame Farah Palmer is set to finish her eight-year term and Dame Patsy Reddy is moving on, leaving the board in need of two new female members - and a new chair.

Of the existing NZR board members, Savage is expected to retain her role but uncertainty surrounds the others.

While the new board will be deemed independent it must include four women and one each who identify with Pasifika and Māori. Three board members must also satisfy the stipulation of having served on a provincial rugby union board or at executive level.

Should Barclay miss out, it would shine a spotlight on those stringent criteria.

The appointments and remunerations panel comprising Highlanders chairman Peter Kean, former NZR chairman Mike Eagle, Institute of Directors chief executive Kirsten Patterson, Rachel Taulelei, Forsyth Barr managing director Neil Paviour-Smith and Pauline Winter, who has experience in the public sector, will interview and select the new NZR board.

Once the board is appointed, it will elect Dame Patsy’s successor as the next NZR chair.

Selecting a new board comes at a time when NZ Rugby confronts some of its greatest challenges with the need to renegotiate a new broadcast deal and strike renewed funding arrangements with the professional players and provincial unions, as well as charting the vexed private investment agreement with Silver Lake.

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission