The Otago women\u2019s rugby team have been denied promotion following a restructure of the\u00a0Farah Palmer Cup.<\/p>\n
Otago Spirit players and fans celebrated joyously after the 37-12 win over the Northland\u00a0Kauri in the Championship final at Tahuna Park in September.<\/p>\n
That would usually have meant instant promotion to the top-tier Premiership for the first\u00a0time since 2021.<\/p>\n
Instead, a review into the FPC structure following the removal of the struggling Taranaki\u00a0Whio spells bad news for Otago.<\/p>\n
New Zealand Rugby today announced the competition would have two divisions of six teams\u00a0each in 2026.<\/p>\n
Hawke\u2019s Bay are relegated from the Premiership, but the Spirit will stay in the Championship\u00a0to ensure both divisions have six teams.<\/p>\n
NZR said the divisions had been determined \u2018\u2018through structural changes and minimum\u00a0standards, rather than playoff results\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n
The news might not go down well with the Spirit faithful but Otago Rugby Football Union\u00a0chief executive Richard Kinley is hoping to look at the bigger picture.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a thorough process and, while we are naturally disappointed with the immediate\u00a0outcome, we remain optimistic,\u2019\u2019 Kinley said.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018The changes being introduced will help to grow the women\u2019s game, and we look forward to\u00a0supporting our Otago Spirit team next season.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
NZR head of women\u2019s high performance Hannah Porter \u2014 a former Otago player \u2014 said\u00a0changes had been introduced to strengthen the Farah Palmer Cup and ensure its long-term\u00a0sustainability.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018These changes align with NZR\u2019s focus on strengthening development pathways in the\u00a0women\u2019s game,\u2019\u2019 Porter said.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018While this will be disappointing for the Otago Spirit, it is not a reflection of their\u00a0commitment or performance.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Otago remains a proud contributor to women\u2019s rugby, inspiring players and supporters, and\u00a0their role will be vital as we move forward.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
A similar situation occurred in 2017-18, when Auckland stayed in the same pool despite\u00a0where they placed in the previous season, due to structural changes that were made the\u00a0following year.<\/p>\n
In the same way, the current adjustments reflected \u2018\u2018the unique circumstances of the\u00a0competition\u2019s evolution rather than the efforts of any individual team\u2019\u2019, NZR said.<\/p>\n
Standard promotion-relegation will return from the 2026 season, some consolation for the\u00a0Spirit as they seek to do it all again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Otago women\u2019s rugby team have been denied promotion following a restructure of the\u00a0Farah Palmer Cup. Otago Spirit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-184727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}