By Glenn McLean

After nearly a decade of serving as Taranaki Rugby chairman, Lindsay Thomson will walk away from the role incredibly proud of what has been achieved.

The former representative lock, who filled the second row of the Taranaki scrum on 104 occasions, ended his tenure as chairman of the union’s board at its annual meeting on Wednesday night.

While the focus for Taranaki Rugby has been on survival since the disastrous ramifications surrounding the condemned stands at Yarrow Stadium, Thomson’s tenure as chairman, as well as board member for the past 12 years, has also seen the union enjoy unparalleled success on the field, including its first top flight domestic title in 2014.

On Thomson’s watch the Taranaki side also won the Ranfurly Shield twice, hosted All Black tests, Rugby World Cup matches, invested in the Chiefs, while two of the union’s former chief executives have risen to lead the Chiefs and New Zealand Rugby.

“I’m incredibly proud of what the board and the TRFU staff have achieved over that nine years from 2011 to 2020 when I was chairman,” he said.

As part of a progressive board in 2010, Thomson played a strong hand in the decision to invest heavily in player and coach recruitment for its top representative side.

That included the appointment of former Hurricanes coach Colin Cooper who helped attract a number of promising players who would later go on to become All Blacks.

The mix of new men in key positions, combined with the development of local talent, saw Taranaki consistently sit in the top four of New Zealand domestic sides and culminated with the home victory in the final of the 2014 ITM Cup at a sold out Yarrow Stadium.

“There was one person, who a lot of people would not know, who gave us the encouragement and support to back ourselves and that was Stephen Jennings,” Thomson said.

“He encouraged us to be the very best. He believed we could be the best rugby province in New Zealand and I was so pleased he was there for that grand final in 2014 which we won.”

While the recruitment process was not universally accepted or liked within Taranaki, it eventually led to crowd numbers returning to some of the halcyon days the province enjoyed through previous periods of success.

“The achievements over that period, I am incredibly proud of. It was a combination of board and staff and we also had two outstanding CEO’s in Mark Robinson and Michael Collins - guys who knew how to run high performance organisations.”

Thomson also paid tribute to the work of former New Plymouth Boys’ High School principal Paul Veric who stepped in as interim CEO following the resignation of Jeremy Parkinson and to the work current chief executive Laurence Corlett was doing.

While the union’s financial position remains incredibly tight due to the Yarrow Stadium situation, Thomson said the union had the right commercial model in place up to that point and that had been proven by results on and off the field.

“We had built up our cash reserves to more than $800,000 and that took good management from an operational staff point of view.”

Despite the success through the majority of his tenure , Thomson said it was not all “plain sailing” and everyone had to work extremely hard to get the results they achieved.

That included raising in excess of $4 million annually to “keep the business” afloat.

“Every year you ran the risk, especially if you had a lot of injuries, you could easily lose $200,000. But if you had a good year you could do the opposite.

“We always maintained, we had to build up our cash reserves so that if we did have a bad year that we could cover that. What we never anticipated was the loss of the whole stadium. That took away our whole commercial model.”

Dealing with that has seen the board and the TRFU staff work tirelessly to try and deliver the best match day experience for Taranaki’s supporters.

Thomson does not believe the stadium issue will define his time as chairman.

“People will go back and look at the period between 2011 and 2017 and say we won the Ranfurly Shield twice, we won New Zealand’s premier provincial competition in 2014 and between 2008 and 2017 we hosted four All Blacks tests and we also hosted three Rugby World Cup matches.

“They were great occasions for our province.”

A staunchly proud club man, Thomson also takes pride in the fact that there has been genuine competition for the top club prize.

“It’s none of my doing but in the nine years as chairman six different clubs have won the McMasters Shield.  To me, that’s a good reflection of our club rugby.”

While he admits to being disappointed at not being able to see out a decade as chairman after not being elected back on to the board during the voting process in March, Thomson harbours no bitterness.

“I was aware, with the issues of the stadium, our recent on-field performance and around some of the staff who left last year, there was concerns from some of our clubs. It’s a democratic process, the clubs have the right to vote for whoever they wish.

“John Dazley stood against me and was elected. There are no quibbles from me. I am disappointed because my own personal goal was to do a decade and then step down as chair while still being on the board. So yes, I was disappointed but I don’t have any qualms about leaving the board because I have thoroughly enjoyed my time.”

As for the future, Thomson said it would still involve some rugby.

“I will miss it but I can now move on and do other things. What people might not realise is that it is a big time commitment. You are a volunteer and you’re not paid for any of this.

“This is what I liked to do away from my own job and my family so I can do some other things now.”

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Article added: Thursday 02 July 2020