David Gray had been Graham Atkin's deputy for three years, chairman of the finance committee, and on the junior advisory board for another couple of years before that, so he had a pretty good idea of what the problems were when he took over in 1993.
Action was needed on several fronts to reorganize the struggling union and place it in a position from where it could recover its strength to face the modern world. The problem, as Gray saw it, was that the old management committee structure had made it impossible to make the hard calls necessary for change.
The clubs had representatives on the committee who were there - in the opinion of the clubs anyway - first and foremost to look after that delegate's club, with the union itself a very poor second.
So to force change - which was so badly needed - there had to be a major change to the union's structure, and not by any means did everyone agree with that concept.
Atkin had made some initial moves to change, and when he stepped aside the tasks facing Gray were dominated by this - and the need to find a new home to play major matches.
To put not too fine a point on it, Athletic Park's problems had become overwhelming, and hinted doubts about Wellington's ability to hold major matches were starting to come through from national management.
Gray's approach was pretty basic. Although some work had been done in preparing and assessing plans for the redevelopment of the park, he believed nothing could be done properly unless the management structure was changed first.
So he made that his major aim, especially after a 1994 strategic planning meeting of key people (inside and outside the union) decided it was the key factor in moving forward.
"A key thing was the ground change - although that in itself would never have been enough. We had the change the structure of the WRU and its 19-man management committee," Gray said.
"To get anything through that committee one (as chairman) had to be quite political the way one managed things. To be chairman you had to quite neutral, and that in itself created problems with one's own club.
"So there was no point in fixing anything unless you fixed the decision-making process," Gray says. "At the time we were moving into professional rugby and we needed a structure that worked. The way things were, if you tried to lead and change things on that 19-man committee - and stuck your head out to do it - you got it shot off."
Happily Gray's own MSP club and the powerful Petone were right behind the moves, and Gray went about it by bringing club chairmen right into the "loop", having them in small, intimate group meetings, and keeping them out of an atmosphere of big meetings where they might fear for their jobs if they stood up and spoke out one way or the other.
The selected format was one of an appointed board of directors, talented experienced men who would not have to answer to their individual clubs when they made the tough calls. They would be backed-up by the Rugby Board, made up of 23 representatives of clubs, referees, secondary schools etc - which would run the club or amateur part of the game.
It was a time for change throughout New Zealand rugby, and the structure chosen bore some similarity to that put in by the Auckland Union a few months earlier.
Gray says such a change could not have been done back in 1988 or 1989 because the clubs would not have allowed it
"To be fair, people like Graham Atkin saw these problems very clearly as well. But he couldn't have done it five years earlier. He would not have had as good a support from the clubs. Around that time we were winning NPCs or finishing second, so what was there to fix?"
By the time 1993-94 had come around Wellington had gone through four mediocre seasons, Athletic Park was falling apart, there was no money to "buy" or entice outside players, and Wellington generally was seen by outsiders as being a good place to keep out of."
In fact with no international match in 1995 (the NZRFU took it to Auckland to help combat the arrival of the Warriors), Wellington's loss was $265,000, as against $15,000 and $65,000 the previous two years.
Each of those three years a potential good year had been wrecked by pouring $200,000-plus into Athletic Park. At the end of 1995 Wellington had a $200,000 loan from the NZRFU it couldn't repay, its assets were $400,000 and its liabilities were $650,000.
Hard to ignore.
So the process was put to the test, and passed surprisingly easily. The facts were hard to
Ignore, even to the hardbitten club types around the WRF table. Gray stood down when it was accomplished.
Two years later he was on the other side of the fence, as chief executive of the Wellington Stadium Trust. That was his other major accomplishment.
He was very instrumental in steering Wellington away from Athletic Park and towards a dual-purpose, consumer-friendly stadium.
That tale is told in the chapter on the move from Athletic Park to the WestpacTrust Stadium.