It's 100% likely that the organisation is functioning better with less staff. It's easier to manage less people.
It's also 100% likely that some previous roles that were redundant during COVID will become necessary again.
The reality was they just couldn't carry those people through COVID so they had to go.
Now, I'm crook. And a bit sleep deprived. So perhaps it's obvious and I'm missing it but. Are those costs that were cut annual or over X years? Because if they are annual. ARE. YOU. F@#KING. KIDDING. ME!!! All this talk of there not being enough money for this or for that and all this time it was being spent on corporate excess. I mean.
A substantial amount of those costs were because nothing was happening. If you don't host 3 test matches during the season because the July tour gets cancelled you save millions of dollars of expenditure.
If 7s players and staff go from getting paid decently to only getting paid JobKeeper then it saves a lot.
If pro players cut their salaries drastically you save millions.
Etc. etc. These are single year costs but a lot of them will come right back.
Cutting $8m out of the member unions is going to hurt rugby around the country massively if it doesn't come back.