New Zealand Rugby puts $687k into the grassroots as All Blacks legends’ clubs benefit from game-changing Legacy Fund
Monday, 8 December 2025
$60m Legacy Fund was set up as part of Silver Lake investment.
NZ Rugby has awarded first 12 grants totalling $687,438.
Seven projects involve upgrades to facilities for female players.
Dan Carter’s club Southbridge and Colin Meads’ Waitete Rugby Football Club have been announced as two of the first 12 recipients for grants of New Zealand Rugby’s Legacy Fund - an important reminder of where All Blacks and Black Ferns are actually made - but female rugby players are set to be the biggest winners.
New Zealand Rugby announced on Monday morning that $687,438 will be distributed in the first-ever round of Legacy Fund grants after more than 140 submissions were received.
The following clubs or programs were selected: Auckland Asian Rugby Club, Greytown Rugby Football Club, Hamilton Old Boys RSC, Helensville District Rugby Football Club, Kaierau RFC, Kaikoura Rugby Club, Methven Rugby Football Club, Sense Rugby, Southbridge Rugby Football Club, Te Kauwhata Rugby Sports Club, Te Puke Sports & Rec Club and Waitete Rugby Football Club.
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Seven of those grants were for upgrades for women and girl’s facilities and Legacy Fund manager Cam Bell said the Legacy Fund advisory board was in no doubt that it would be money well spent.
“There was absolutely no debate,” Bell told The Post. “We need safer, more inviting facilities to encourage females to come into our game.
“You've got to be living under a rock if you're not aware that our game is exploding with females coming into it, and not just at player level.
“I know from experience up in Northland a lot of the administrators in the game are females.
“New Zealand rugby is blessed with an infrastructure of community-based clubs right throughout the country that were built in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s by farmers, builders.
“God bless them for what they did because they would have given their own time and energy, but there would have been no consideration to females playing our game.
“Things have changed for the good and a lot of clubs are driving that.”
Grants to the Auckland Asian Rugby Club and Sense Rugby, which caters to neurodivergent youth, also reflected New Zealand’s changing demographics, Bell said.
The Legacy Fund was set up in 2022 as part of the Silver Lake investment into NZ Rugby, as provincial unions pushed hard for its establishment.
Signficant capital of $60 million was out into the fund and will be managed by NZ Rugby, with the returns being used to fund projects up and down the country.
While it is called the Legacy Fund, in practice it is akin to a government-run infrastructure fund that has the capacity to modernise the country’s rugby clubs and small community hubs one at a time.
The grant for the Southbridge club in Canterbury, whose most famous son has always retained a connection to the club, will be used for a facility upgrade, while other grants will go towards field or turf upgrades.
There will be two submissions in 2026 and Bell said the clubs or programmes that unsuccessful with their initial applications can try again next year.
“For anybody that missed out, I would say don't be despondent,” he said. “There was such a high number of quality applications.
“There were some that would have just missed out by the narrowest of margins.
“…If you want feedback, come back to me. So, I'm just looking at the queries come in and I will personally go back to each of those because there's such compelling reasons.”
The Legacy Fund is strictly for grassroots clubs and programs, not high-performance, and Bell said there were barely any applications that could be “deemed frivolous or nice to have” and was enthused by the integrity of the applicants.
“The game is in the hands of custodians in our grassroots community that we should be really, really proud of,” he said.
“I was quite blown away with the positivity and the enthusiasm and I just hope people aren't put off if they've missed out this time.”