Currently fourth-placed in the 'Odds' conference, the Magpies - if they reach the playoffs - will face a quarter-final against one of the other sides in the 'Odds' conference.
Most likely, that would be a revenge match against Wellington in Wellington, or in Hamilton against defending NPC champions Waikato, with whom the Magpies drew 32-all in the opening round in Hamilton on August 6 and which is already the TAB favourite for its challenge for the shield against Wellington this weekend.
The Magpies came closest to the title last year, when No 1 in the minor premiership, and beating eventual finalists Tasman and Waikato in shield defences, only to be beaten in a semi-final and left to watch defending champion Tasman and eventual 2022 winner Waikato play the final.
The issue for Syms and the team is to lift themselves back to the type of shield-winning level which marks the team's history with three of its four challengers this season – Hawke's Bay having superior win-loss Ranfurly Shield match records against North Harbour, Southland and Wellington, but inferior records in all matches against each of the unions.
Saturday's game gave Wellington just its fourth win in 12 Shield matches against Hawke's Bay, the two unions' latest match of the centuries.
It was Wellington's 100th Shield match, and came 100 years and 39 days after Hawke's Bay's first Shield challenge win, a 19-9 victory over Wellington in 1922, and the beginning of Hawke's Bay's nearly five years at the top in the 1920s.
It was also the 100th first-class match for the Magpies captain, one of those being when he and 12 others of Saturday's 23 celebrated Hawke's Bay's 100th Shield match two years ago with a win against Wellington.
Hawke's Bay also has the better record for retaining the Shield, having won it six times, and being third behind only Auckland and Canterbury for the number of wins in challenges and defences. Wellington is sixth, despite being the original holder in 1904 and having won it 12 times.
The most famed game between the unions was with first five-eighths Blair Furlong's dropped goal for Hawke's Bay to claim a 12-all draw to retain the Log o' Wood at the end of the first full season of the 1966-1969 era.
It was in front of a crowd estimated at 26,000, possibly a record for any sports event or concert in Hawke's Bay, a region recognised in the modern era as having the best crowd attendances in the NPC - even if the biggest crowd of this season, last Saturday, was just 8288.
Saturday's match was the first time Hawke's Bay hadn't scored a try in 32 Shield matches since challenging Waikato in 2012 and being beaten 28-3.
Syms, appointed a technical advisor to the Magpies in late 2017, forwards coach under head-coach Mark Ozich in 2018 and elevated to the top job amid Ozich's departure at the end of last year for a job with Perth Super Rugby the Western Force, recognises big-time the history of the Shield and its place with the fans.
Son of former New Zealand Universities representative David Syms, who tasted Ranfurly Shield success playing for Auckland in the 1970s, said in the aftermath of Saturday's loss: "We're disappointed, and the players are disappointed."
"It's been 713 great days," he said. "But at some stage, we weren't going to get the rub of the green. That's Shield rugby - it's a great incentive, but it is very hard to win every game at home. It really is."
"We've never won a premiership," he said, acknowledging that of its 14 teams, only the Magpies, Northland and Southland have not won the major title, which dates back to Bay of Plenty winning the first NPC in 1976.
The Details
Sixth Hawke's Bay Ranfurly Shield era:
2020: beat Otago 28-9 (challenge), beat Northland 33-17, beat Manawatū 47-12, beat Wellington 34-18.
2021: beat North Otago 85-0, beat Ngati Porou East Coast 93-5, beat Otago 34-10, beat Bay of Plenty 36-33 (extra time), beat Tasman 34-22, beat Waikato 41-14.
2022: beat South Canterbury 38-20, beat Poverty Bay 95-22, beat Counties-Manukau 33-32, beat North Harbour 25-23, beat Southland 69-24, lost to Wellington 12-19.
Most successful Ranfurly Shield defences: Auckland 147, Canterbury 139, Hawke's Bay 72, Waikato 60, Taranaki 48, Wellington 40.