Otago, supposedly a top five union, came in seventh in the rankings of unions in the review of the Air New Zealand Cup released yesterday.
Otago Rugby Football Union chief executive Richard Reid said in theory it would be nice to be fifth, as the union was a base for a Super 14 franchise, but given it has not done particularly well in some of the key performance indicators, he was comfortable with the seventh place.
"We are not 13th or 14th but we can clearly improve. I'm comfortable with it," Reid, who took over the ORFU reins in October last year, said.
"This is not a wake-up call for us. We are clearly aware of what we have and have not done. We are very good in some areas, and not so good in others."
The rankings were released by the New Zealand Rugby Union yesterday after a majority of provincial unions had asked for all the rankings to be put in the public domain.
Northland and Tasman are the bottom two ranked unions, and the demotion of these two unions from the Air New Zealand Cup is expected to be confirmed at an NZRU board meeting next week.
The criteria set by the NZRU covered population, male player numbers, 2006-07 playing history, player training and development, financial position, and governance and administration.
Reid did not have details on what part of the criteria the Otago union did poorly in, and the NZRU would not release detailed rankings.
But Otago made the biggest loss of any union last year - logging in a $1.5 million deficit, with $900,000 of that in cash - so its financial performance score would not have been rosy.
It would have also struggled in playing numbers, as unions such as North Harbour have a large playing base.
Otago reached the semifinals and quarterfinals of the national competition in the past two years, so playing history would have been in the plus box.
North Harbour and Counties-Manukau would have also been boosted by population.
Reid said with the large financial losses of the past couple of years, 2008 had been just about getting through the year.
The union's annual report would be released in February, and it was too early to speculate on the final financial performance.
He said many people, rightly or wrongly, judged how a union was going by how its first XV was performing.
Some unions had a great first XV but were poor in doing things off the field.
Other unions were the other way round.
Worrying for the Highlanders franchise was the performance of Southland, which was 12th in the rankings, just surviving the cut.
Southland would have suffered in the population and player numbers stakes, and also financial performance.
The Community Trust of Southland and Invercargill Licensing Trust announced this week they were coming to the aid of the Southland union to the tune of more than $1 million to help clear debts.
The Otago union had put in its submission on the future shape of the Air New Zealand Cup, and supported the move to down-scale the competition to 12 teams.
Reid said Otago always believed in a true national competition and was never in favour of reducing the competition to a level of teams similar to the Super 14 competition.
But it was unconvinced 14 teams in the Air New Zealand Cup was sustainable, Reid said.
