Murray McCaw copped the scorn of the country when New Zealand lost the hosting of the Rugby World Cup, but one legacy he can be proud of is heading the board that took Wellington Rugby from the point of no-return to a position of financial wealth and power.
McCaw was a PR-marketing man, the managing director of Colmar-Brunton Research in fact, when the Wellington Rugby Union decided to change its archaic management committee system to one of a board of professionally-experienced directors overseeing a rugby board which looked after the amateur part of rugby.
He was involved in doing market research on the possible use of the Basin Reserve as a replacement for Athletic Park - and also worked with the Super 12 franchises in setting-up that competition in its first year.
So he was asked to put his name forward, was chosen - and when the board held its first meeting, was nominated by a couple as chairman - and found no opposition.
The time for change saved Wellington - but also the time of professionalism.
McCaw says the union was so close to being broke that only a huge amount of goodwill around Wellington kept it going in that 1996 year. The rapidly escalating cost of maintaining a decrepit Athletic Park had drained the union's resources for too long - to as much as between $360,000 and $450,000 a year by the time it closed in 1999.
Only the discovery by McCaw in late 1996 that the union owned Strand Park in Lower Hutt - and its revaluation as a result - saved the union from becoming technically insolvent. In other words the assets had not covered the liabilities.
"We were able to pay our bills - eventually - in that year, but we still had a (large) loan outstanding to the New Zealand Rugby Football Union," McCaw said.
To make matters worse, the showers went cold after the wet Bledisloe Cup test against Australia at Athletic Park, and the NZRFU threatened to take tests matches away from Wellington unless facilities were rapidly upgraded.
At that point emphasis for a new stadium had moved to the Railway Yards area, but until progress was made there, Athletic Park needed $300,000-plus of upgrading. McCaw went cap-in-hand to the Wellington City Council and was sent on his way with a message from one female councilor that no money would be given to an entity that "was going to be broke in six months."
Research two years later revealed each Tri-Nations test in Wellington was worth $6million to the Capital.
Happily liquor wholesaler Nicholsons came to the party, and running repairs were made and the test threat disappeared - for the moment anyway.
McCaw says the thing that saved Wellington Rugby was Super 12. If that competition had not started in 1996, there would still have been rugby in Wellington but who would have been running it is anyone's guess. McCaw says the new board decided to do its own thing.
"We decided as a board that no-one was going to give us a handout. As a union you can't exist on handouts. We took a self-help approach to the whole thing."
There were three things to get right:
He says his board put a tremendous amount of work into setting-up the Hurricanes franchise properly - "the strength of it as a brand, the underlying philosophy of the way the game was going to be played etc. It made the Canes what they are - a phenomenon in my view. We set out to create an exciting brand and attract different people to rugby. Rugby was a bit like Old Spice in our view. That had been No 1 but was getting old. We didn't want rugby to go the same way."
Revenue: "We took the top two to three rows out of Athletic Park and put boxes in. That gave us a facility to go out to the corporates and get new money for rugby. And we revitalised the office and management structure."
"And we had to protect Wellington's test-match status. The NZRFU was bloody-minded enough at the time to take it away if we hadn't acted."
So it happened. But the lifeblood all the way along was the Super 12 and its attraction to the new rugby follower. It offered money - the folding stuff that Wellington had none of when McCaw and his board took over.
Then there was the stadium.
Through all this time the union was battling for its fair share of anything that came out (profit) of a Railway Yards Stadium for rugby. There were near to all-night meetings between McCaw, CEO David White and Paul Quinn for the union and the Stadium Trust.
McCaw says several times things came close to a breakdown - but he said the underlying message for all was that the stadium and rugby needed each other so much that talks couldn't be allowed to break apart.
"If it broke down, where would Wellington rugby go? We didn't have a lot of good `option`s - not that the stadium people knew that. And a stadium without rugby would have been a stadium without much at all. We kept telling them that.
"But in the end neither of us allowed it to break down.
"We would push barrows, they would push barrows - but every time we came back in we had some `option`s for them to look at. And so did they for us."
And so agreement was reached - eventually. And look at the effect the stadium has had on Wellington Rugby now.
McCaw was also instrumental in getting David White as his new chief executive officer. It was to be an inspired choice even though he admits it was a punt because of White's lack of business experience.
"David was a man for his time. But I think his time had come when he went (2001).
When you come into a job like this, where Wellington Rugby was at, you need a certain style. David had to go from nought to something big in a short time, and the person who replaced him had to consolidate it. Those jobs are very different,"
The White appointment had something more than a strong financial performer in mind. It had to be someone who could create an environment of massive progress in a short time.
"As a board we decided we had to have someone who understood professional sport and had a strong financial understanding. David had a B.Com, although he doesn't profess to be an accountant - more importantly he understood professional sport and how to relate to athletes," McCaw said.
Most importantly the WRU had to change the way outsiders saw Wellington as a city and Wellington rugby.
McCaw, his board and White achieved that.within a few years. Wellington rugby was on the verge of leaving Athletic Park for the new stadium when McCaw stood - and gained a seat on - the NZRFU board. A year or so later he was chairman of the NZRFU.
What really happened there is a story he may tell some day, but as far as Wellington rugby is concerned, his tale is one of great success.