Makos buck attendance trend [Fairfax]

The Tasman Rugby Union doesn't share the national body's concerns about falling attendances for provincial rugby. In fact, TRU boss Tony Lewis is positively upbeat about the Makos' supportive fan base.

Lewis was responding to claims by New Zealand Rugby chief executive Steve Tew this week that low fan turnout was becoming a concern throughout the national provincial championship.

Tew said that provincial rugby was "struggling to get people through the gate" and that attendance-wise, "we are down on numbers from this time last year".

However, Lewis said that the Tasman Makos' continuing success was paying positive dividends at the turnstiles. Although new to the top-tier premiership competition this year, the Makos have so far recorded five wins, a draw and a loss to currently lie second equal on points with Taranaki.

"We're actually breaking the trend," Lewis said. "I would say with two home matches to go, we're significantly above budget in gate takings."

The union's commercial and marketing manager Les Edwards said that attendances for all three Makos' home games already played this year were up on corresponding games from last season.

"For example, the Friday night game [against Waikato at Trafalgar Park], which we got 5100 to, we got 3400 to the corresponding game [last year], so that's a significant increase," Edwards said.

The Makos' Thursday night clash against Taranaki attracted a crowd of 3500 which Edwards said was "similar" to last year's corresponding match.

"There's been a couple of advantages for us this year," Edwards said.

"One, of course, is a successful [Tasman] team playing attractive rugby, [and] two is we've been very lucky so far with the weather. Some of those low attendances that Tew is talking about, they're in markets where they've had shocking weather and we haven't.

"And the other thing that was really in our favour was that Friday 6pm kick-off - that really works."

The union was equally pleased with the 4200 gate for Tasman's season-opener against Hawke's Bay in Blenheim, with the successful ploy of using several corporate tents to be repeated for the final game against Counties-Manukau in Blenheim on Sunday, October 12.

"It certainly makes for a great atmosphere," Edwards said.

Edwards was hoping for another 5000-plus crowd for this Sunday's game against Otago at Trafalgar Park, "and that would be up on the Sunday game that we had last year which was against Hawke's Bay in the wet".

"Actually, it was raining all day and then it cleared up for the match, but by then people had made their minds up to watch it on television."

Lewis acknowledged that some provinces enjoyed better support than others."I think something that you've also got to look at is that the two areas where the crowds have plummeted are Wellington and Auckland and I don't think that the rest of the country should be judged on that," Lewis said.

"The crowds for the Christchurch matches, they seem quite good. Invercargill had a massive crowd when they played Otago.

"Also, I think some of those areas have saturation rugby. So you take Auckland [for example], they have a [Super Rugby] franchise, they've had two tests.

"If we had six Super games and a test match [in Tasman], we might be struggling as well."

Lewis said that, instead of looking at it purely in terms of crowd numbers, New Zealand Rugby should be looking at where they are dropping.

"You have to create an atmosphere and we've been very fortunate this year, we've worked hard at creating an atmosphere that is conducive to people coming to the game . . . and on top of that, the way the team has engaged with the Tasman community has meant there's a real buzz around the town re rugby.

"I think from a purely commercial point of view for us, we are above budget at this stage for our revenue on gate receipts. Our crowd numbers have definitely increased across the board."

- The Nelson Mail