Well done rugby unions

On the 9th of September I blogged this open letter from a reader:

As we are all aware the people of Canterbury have suffered a terrible disaster, many are operating on adrenalin alone, many face weeks if not months of uncertainty and disruption.

Both the NZRU and the CRU are in an almost unique situation where you can offer the people of Canterbury a brief respite from their woes, with that in mind I have a suggestion.

On the 25th of September you have an afternoon game scheduled between Canterbury and Wellington, why not make attendance at this game free of charge for anybody who wants to come along.

Why not offer the people of Canterbury the chance to forget their problems for a couple of hours, perhaps you could take around donation buckets for those who wish to contribute to the mayoral fund, no pressure should be put on anybody to contribute and many of those who turn up will have lost everything, however there will be others who can and would donate.

Stuff reports:

Canterbury rugby is opening the doors of AMI Stadium to the public as their way of providing some much-needed earthquake relief.

Canterbury union chief executive Hamish Riach today announced that next Saturday afternoon’s Canterbury-Wellington ITM Cup match in Christchurch would be free admission.

The offer is in response to the earthquake disaster in Canterbury and has been made possible thanks to support from the CRFU, NZRU, CRFU sponsors AMI Insurance, Tui, TicketDirect and AMI Stadium managers Vbase.

“The Canterbury region has gone through a lot recently and rugby and its partners are absolutely delighted to give this high-profile game to the community free of charge,” said Riach.

Well done Hamish, and all the companies listed who worked together to get the game made free. I hope those attending enjoy it (and lose narrowly :-).

And congrats to the blog reader who authored the open letter – a good idea which came to fruition.