They officially opened their refurbished facilities in the High Performance Sport New Zealand building next to Forsyth Barr Stadium last night.
After taking over as the main leaseholder last year, the Highlanders invested about $2million in a sweeping redevelopment of the building to make it more fit for purpose for a professional rugby club.
While the build took four and a-half months, they had spent a couple of years planning the project and getting funding in place, chief executive Roger Clark said.
‘‘It’s a massive commitment from our owners. They’ve made a huge investment in high-performance rugby for both the Highlanders and high-performance sport in this part of the world.
‘‘We wouldn’t have done it without them.’’
The Highlanders once bunked down at Carisbrook and later had digs at the Sargood Centre, at Logan Park, then a nearby prefab complex.
Since moving into the HPSNZ building in 2012, the playing squad had almost doubled in size, Clark said.
‘‘We really didn’t meet, I would say, health standards.
‘‘We didn’t have enough showers and toilets, and when you have a lot of athletes in one area, it becomes a hygiene issue as much as an operational issue.
‘‘It all detracted from the retention and recruitment of both players and coaches, so it’s been a big issue for us for six or seven years.’’
Player reviews at season’s end regularly bemoaned the Highlanders’ sub-standard facilities, Clark said.
He highlighted the Dunedin City Council’s efforts in improving their training grounds across the road.
The Highlanders board and management then thrashed out a deal with HPSNZ to take over the main lease — the timing worked out as the national sports organisation now considers Dunedin a high-performance hub, not a centre, and there are significantly fewer athletes on the premises — and work on the space.
There were once just two showers for the team and now there are eight, while the players have an all-new dedicated locker room plus new team rooms and simple things like a coffee machine.
‘‘The young guys just coming in probably think it’s always been this way,’’ Clark said.
‘‘For the older guys, and people like Ben Smith who is now a coach, they really think the facilities are outstanding.
‘‘ We’ve got a few tweaks to be made, and more things to go on the walls, but we’re getting there.
‘‘It’s a nice environment to work in.’’
Clark’s comments were echoed by his head coach.
Jamie Joseph hailed the ‘‘brilliant’’ improvements made to the Highlanders’ base.
‘‘The simplicity of having a changing room, where the players can have a yarn before and after training, is something that we haven’t had since the club came into this facility,’’ Joseph said.
‘‘There is more room for everything, they’ve got a place to relax, they’ve got their own locker rooms.
‘‘All of the other clubs have been fortuitous in they’ve been able to have these sort of facilities and support for a long time.
‘‘For us, this is a bit of a breakthrough, and hopefully that pays dividends for us.’’
