Gregor Paul: New Zealand Rugby take things from bad to catastrophically bad

It has been an astonishing seven days for New Zealand Rugby's top brass where somehow they have managed to take things from bad to catastrophically bad without so much as a hint of accepting responsibility.

It's fascinating to see not only how this frankly mad plot of self-destruction is going to play out, but also for how long all those responsible for blowing up rugby in the Southern Hemisphere can blame someone else.

NZR chairman Brent Impey upped the stakes over the weekend when he said Southern Hemisphere Rugby only has four years of life left unless someone else fixes it.

We had what was tantamount to an admission that the Sanzaar dream is doomed, but no accompanying statement of culpability.

Instead, Impey made an impassioned plea for newly re-elected World Rugby chairman Bill Beaumont to make progress on the vexed issue of revenue sharing, eligibility and the complex book of laws that make the game unfathomably difficult to referee.

He said that without change, the Southern Hemisphere nations "will be gone within four years" implying that Beaumont and his Six Nations cronies should be the ones held responsible for fixing the financial carnage that exists South of the Equator.

Well, let's say goodbye then because this campaign to engage the Six Nations in a fix-it job is an exercise in futility.

The Six Nations have built a phenomenally successful competition. It runs on a simple format, has been broadcast live on free-to-air TV and games are played in the afternoon.

Millions of dollars have been poured into their respective stadiums to enhance the viewing and match day experience and the Six Nations have reaped big rewards by putting fans first.

Sanzaar, on the other hand, have messed around with their format, sold their rights exclusively to pay-per-view broadcasters, played late at night and mostly in stadiums that are barely fit for purpose.

Rather than get their house in order, Sanzaar have their hand out, saying they should have a bigger slice of the Six Nations' hard-earned pie.

And they are saying it to Beaumont, a man for whom Sanzaar didn't vote and the Six Nations did.

But as much as this is futile it is also disingenuous as NZR are not advocating a redistribution of test match income to ensure more flows to the little guys, it's about winning a pay deal that better reflects the strength of the All Blacks' brand.

Nor have they campaigned for a change in the eligibility laws as a means to strengthen the global game. Allowing dual qualified players to represent two nations will not alleviate the core problems faced by the Pacific Islands.

All it will alleviate is guilt as New Zealand, like Australia, England, Wales and France will continue to have first dibs on the Pacific's best talent, then chuck them back to the Islands when they are finished with them.

NZR sees itself as the champion of the 'little guys', but no one else does as was irrefutably proven when Fiji and Samoa voted for Beaumont.

It wasn't so much a vote for the Englishman as a vote against Sanzaar – a powerful message that they have had enough of false promises.

Fiji were denied a place in next year's Super Rugby revamp after they were subjected to a feasibility study which included a financial stress test that every existing team would have failed.

The Fijians also wonder whether Sanzaar is in any way qualified to accurately determine financial sustainability, given the disastrous balance sheets of many of the current participants.

The Six Nations nor Beaumont are responsible for the mess in which the Southern Hemisphere currently finds itself.

Super Rugby is a mess because Sanzaar isn't a real body, with cohesive power or unified purpose. It's a sham organisation, typified by the massive contradiction that New Zealand is in the midst of a far-reaching review that will reconsider the future scale of Super Rugby and the format, with strong suggestions that everything will have to be ripped up and re-positioned with more local and trans-Tasman flavour.

But yesterday Sanzaar boss Andy Marinos adamantly proclaimed there is a cast-iron two-year commitment in place for Super Rugby to be a 14-team round-robin competition featuring five teams from New Zealand, four each from Australia and South Africa and the Jaguares from Argentina.