KEY POINTS:
David Moffett has hit the nail on the head.
It's high time Australia and New Zealand un-hitched their wagons from South Africa and formed a real-deal Australasian club/provincial rugby competition instead of persisting with the exhausting and often utterly boring Super 14.
Moffett has talked surprising sense since
his days as the New Zealand Rugby Union's chief executive, and he's doing it again.
Is the monolithic NZRU - a sporting Kremlin - listening?
It would appear not, judging by the way it virtually ushers some of our greatest players out the door, followed by the obligatory press release about being disappointed and thanking them for their contributions.
Moffett, a former Welsh chief executive who headed the NZRU when professionalism arrived, has described South Africa as a disgrace for using a second-rate team in this year's Tri-Nations.
He says it is "imperative" - strong language - that South Africa be cast adrift.
"They behave more and more like Northern Hemisphere unions and should make it official by playing in competitions in the north," he said.
"New Zealand and Australia can get a much better deal for fans, players, sponsors and broadcasters by playing three Bledisloes a year and a home-and-away transtasman Super 10 competition."
I would disagree with Moffett strongly on two points.
First, we want regular test contact with South Africa (if he is suggesting otherwise).
And second, culpability for the breakdown of Sanzar goodwill is shared equally, make no mistake about that.
But his Australasian competition idea is an absolute winner, although I'd argue against his five-five Australia-New Zealand split.
It should start with six teams from New Zealand and four from Australia with a top-five finals series along the lines of the old Australian Rugby League format.
That system was easy to understand and regularly produced a thrilling climax. A top-five finals system would allow most or all the teams and their fans to keep their hopes up for most of the season.
As Moffett says, expansion to include more teams, including from the Pacific Islands, would be considered once the competition is established.
This is the future for Australasian and Pacific rugby. It should be run by a tightknit, professional and committed organisation instead of the loose mob of misfits that is Sanzar, a group so pathetic that it is almost impossible to identify any leaders on which to heap the blame for its failures.
They are an ethereal disaster which appeared to be no more significant than a desk at a travel agency.
Culpability is spread. New Zealand demeaned and wrecked the latest Super 14 by pulling its best players out, South Africa has severely tarnished this year's Tri-Nations, and Australia dumped on New Zealand before the last World Cup.
It has been a marriage of convenience, with divorce forever in the wind. But the fact that each partner has chosen to dishonour rather than obey common sense is not the real problem with the Super 14.
Ultimately, the Super 14 has proved to be a flawed concept. Yes, it helped get professional rugby off the ground, but it is now time to crash-land it in a remote place.
The Super 14 problems are insurmountable.
The arduous plane travel, as Moffett points out, is a nightmare for the players. It is probably taking a season or two off their top-flight careers and contributing heavily to New Zealand's player drain.
Organising a competition over such disparate places and time zones causes many insurmountable problems, from running a decent judicial system to getting consistency from referees.
It means that at the supposed height of the season, there are times when hardly any top-level rugby games are played in New Zealand or at least in our waking hours, which is bizarre.
Most people don't have the time, stamina or eventually the inclination to get up in the middle of the night for weeks on end to watch rugby, which has led to a half-hearted interest in the competition.
The travel factor is overly important in determining the outcomes of matches and seriously affects the tournament's credibility.
What of Moffett's plan?
He favours a five-five split, but I would argue that New Zealand needs to fight tooth and nail to get an extra team into any professional competition, while Australian rugby, for now, would be hurt by having an extra team.
Sport-mad Melbourne may sound like a great place to plant a fifth Australian team, but the league experience shows the city isn't interested in non-Aussie Rules rugby codes.
The superbly coached and organised Melbourne Storm have a brilliant on-field record, yet they had the second lowest crowd figures in the NRL last season even though they were on a run to the grand final.
Much of the crowd at last week's Tri-Nations test was from out of town.
The current evidence also says that Australia has, for now, stretched its rugby-playing resources too thin over four teams.
But rugby-steeped New Zealand needs its head read if it continues to ignore the expansion of Greater Auckland.
The Auckland/North Harbour/Northland area is crying out for a second professional team and, as I argued recently, if that must be at the expense of the struggling Highlanders, then so be it. It is borderline negligent for the NZRU to continue supporting a competition in which the most powerful economic region in the country might host only six games a year. The NZRU is throwing money away.
It would, of course, be far preferable to run professional teams in both North Harbour and Otago.
Not only would a second team in the Auckland region create a fascinating cross-town rivalry - a great part of sport around the world, yet something that has largely eluded New Zealand rugby - but the economic advantages should help keep more top players in this country.
Moffett has pointed the way to the future. He should be applauded. When the next News Ltd deal is up for negotiation, rugby should switch to a new channel.
Another of Moffett's themes is the failure of professional rugby in the Southern Hemisphere to fully understand the importance of tribalism.
On this score, New Zealanders have never truly grasped the identities of the South African sides. They are too far away and largely out of our news, their team lineups are a lottery, and we just ain't interested.
At the same time, our own tribalism has been tainted by forced amalgamations and the reduction in the number of New Zealand teams playing in what is regarded as the premier competition.
So, what do rugby fans believe and can they make their voices heard in the halls of power?
Maybe Moffett, and my supporting views expressed here, are out of step.
Independent fan organisations are a major part of sport around the world, but we are a sheepish lot and tend to get led around by the nose. What do New Zealand fans think?
We are at a pivotal point in rugby history. The professional era had to be ushered in with haste and, 12 years later, it is time to take stock and make the necessary adjustments.
New Zealand needs Australian links to maximise the broadcast money, and an Australasian competition is an exciting concept, money factors aside.
The cost of continuing to band with South Africa - boredom-slash-exhaustion for players and fans - is much too high.
New Zealand will initially lose money by ditching South Africa, which is attractive to the broadcasters because it is in the European time zone.
Yet a more lively NZRU, with fewer Kremlin-like attributes and more free-market nous, would find ways of compensating. It might be pleasantly surprised by the results if it stopped putting its paws on every part of the game.
Release the shackles. And release South Africa.
That's a view from the press box.
So, does the public also believe that an Australasian competition would fire the imagination in a way that the current Super 14 does not? Or maybe most people are happy or even delighted with the status quo.
