"It's not the first time this has happened. It has been an ongoing thing."
O'Keefe says seldom are club teams at full strength due to Magpies commitments overlapping the glitz-and-glamour segment of the competition.
He questions the merit in Magpies coach Craig Philpott taking key players, that is Clive pivot Tiaan Falcon and NOBM halfback Zac Donaldson, to be part of the HB Saracens who received a 57-7 flogging at the hands of Waikato in Hamilton on Saturday.
"They get pulled out for the Magpies or Saracens and they got a thrashing and it had no value so I wonder what they achieved from that."
Falcon, he says, could easily have been the difference between winning and losing.
"I just think it cannibalises rugby, demeans it and belittles it," says the Hastings district councillor who also is the club captain of MAC.
O'Keefe emphasises he has no vested interest in the outcome of the game, which NOBM won 31-26 to lift the Maddison Trophy for the consecutive season in an unblemished winter that saw them add the Nash Cup and the HB Challenge Shield to the silverware in their clubrooms at Park Island.
His concerns stem purely from a community perspective of club rugby.
"Some of these young men will never rise above club rugby so this is their world cup," he says.
"It's the heart and soul [of rugby] and the backbone."
O'Keefe says the club final is something the players and their whanau live for.
He feels it's more than just a game. It's a pivotal time once a year when the platform of rugby engagement becomes a defining moment for communities to champion their values and to define the fabric of their existence.
"They've been looking forward to this so to have some of their star players taken out and put into provincial teams could have been the difference in winning and losing for a team such as Clive."
O'Keefe warns against gambling with such values as he suspects the province will pay the price "because it'll eventually bite us in the bum if we don't take care of it".
He's struggling to see why the scrimmaging provincial games cannot be staged before the playoffs or after it although he believes they have featured as mid-week matches in the past.
"Why take the key players out [for Saracens] in what was a dismal outcome?"
In his post-match remarks, O'Keefe says the Saracens' result didn't ruffle Philpott's feathers on account of the impending arrival of marquee Super Rugby players.
"If it didn't bother him that much then it shouldn't have bothered him much to let people play club rugby."
O'Keefe says that sort of mentality won't do anything good for the community or rugby not to mention the mental scarring some of those players would have suffered against Waikato.
"Just quit playing politics with our club rugby."
He says there are no cheque books at the grassroots level where rugby defines some communities' aspirations.
"The clubs are running on the smell of an oily rag and they have volunteers who go beyond the call of duty for the love of their clubs and their people."
Because they aren't paid, O'Keefe says, the HBRFU should show them respect and pay homage.
He believes club players and the rugby communities "will bleed for the Magpies" so it's simply a matter of timing from the provincial selectors.
"A couple of minor adjustments and I think the problems will be solved," he says, adding it's a lose-lose situation for club rugby and the Magpies.
