KEY POINTS:
It's going to be a difficult few weeks for the 3000 or so people who might be called serious Auckland rugby fans. Ditto the 2000 North Harbour diehards.
Do you chuck in the towel, and join the city's masses in being oblivious of the Air New Zealand Cup.
Or do you switch allegiance and start barracking for Waikato as a northern representative in the finals series. If you take a long teaspoon and really rattle it in a latte glass, it can sound a bit like a cow bell.
While a breathless Auckland rugby public decides how it is going to get fired up for this momentous end to the season, the people who run rugby in the Blues region will no doubt be congratulating themselves.
On what, nobody can be too sure. But no doubt they are, because try as you might, it's very difficult to get even a hint from them that there might be trouble at mill despite what is on the scoreboard.
Rugby has become as corporate as it gets, and in this world you don't admit to anything.
Andy Dalton, the Blues and Auckland chief executive and never the most expressive of men, appeared stony of face and even lemon of lip on television this week. He seemed to imply - it wasn't overly clear - that a lack of representation in national junior teams by players from this region was down to the selection process and that all was well below the surface.
If what we witnessed at Eden Park on Sunday is any indication of what is emerging from the ranks of Auckland rugby, then one would have to say that the national selection process is a very sound one.
Yes, Auckland has lost a lot of players. But so has Hawkes Bay over a long period of time, and they didn't start off with a heck of a lot in the first place. And Hawkes Bay is a player goldmine compared to Tasman, who are also in the quarter-finals.
Auckland, with its population base and the much vaunted excess of Polynesian athletic talent, might have a few troublesome transitional years but it should always breeze into the top eight.
The players who turned up in blue and white hooped shirts on Sunday were naive and reckless. Make a break, fling a million dollar pass. Do anything but hang on to the ball too long. It was often schoolboy-standard football.
The Blues core has, for a decade or so, been unable to find the right balance between foundation and attack. They've failed to find a consistent way of doing things. Players come and go, almost as fast as the coaches do. And good players on Auckland's doorstep go to other provinces.
Whenever a player rises into the Canterbury team, he looks desperate to prove he eats and sleeps the game plan. The jokers running around for Auckland last Sunday were desperate, but in a bad way.
Solutions?
Well, it's tempting here to suggest that the Auckland region should return to the days of being one union, with North Harbour slipping away leaving Northland as the alternative stepping stone for those deemed not up to standard in the big smoke.
The most important team in the area now, the one that attracts the crowds, fields the stars and pulls in the dollars, is the Blues. The whole setup needs to be geared for that and the Super 14 influence is only going to get stronger. Down the track, and it isn't a very long track, provincial rugby will be the new club rugby.
The provinces may be celebrating now, but it won't last. They'll be picked off again and again, a la the transfer of rumbling Hawkes Bay prop Sana Taumalolo to Super 14 base Waikato.
It's a reason the New Zealand Rugby Union's grandiose demands on small unions in the Air New Zealand Cup make no sense. Why tell them to reach for the stars when they are being stripped of them.
A mad Counties-Manukau supporter told me this week it would be better if the Steelers went on a road show and played at the little clubs around their region rather than subjecting a handful of travelling supporters and the TV audience to a barren and soul-less Mt Smart Stadium. Even Pukekohe Stadium is better than that.
If the NZRU has a map on the wall, it would also find that Mt Smart is slap bang in the middle of Penrose, which is slap bang in the middle of Auckland, give or take a suburb or two.
Who needs this big stadium approach during a time of rapidly approaching economic stress?
The surrounds don't really matter in the Air New Zealand Cup any more. People will be happy with a sausage in a bun. They don't need the same thing at twice the price and is called an American hot dog.
What matters is the quality of the football, the thinking and athleticism on the field, not whether there are super soft bog rolls in the loo and plastic seats to park the bum on.
Let the provinces decide what standard of stadium they need and can afford, what works for them.
Air New Zealand Cup games, though, are heading to the point that they are a good day out in the community and a breeding ground for future stars. The provincial competition needs to think small and get ready for the day when the financial backers realise there is not much commercial point in being too heavily involved.
What lies beneath is there for light entertainment and to feed the professional beast, and people have got to come to terms with that.
On that score, a competitive subculture like the one encouraged by the Auckland and North Harbour split may not be overly helpful.
Then again, maybe it can be made to work.
Maybe what really counts however, is finding the right man.
In other words, where would Manchester United be without Alex Ferguson? They were a flashy mess when he arrived.
Where would the Crusaders have been without Robbie Deans? We may find out fairly soon.
Sometimes you may end up with the right man in the wrong place. Deans, for instance, may have floundered in Auckland.
Systems. Unions split and marriages. Junior programmes. Diet regimes. They complement but don't compensate for whatever whizzes around between the ears.
The right man, the right place, the right chemistry between the two.
Is Pat Lam the man for the Blues? I used to be confident. Now I'm really not so sure.
After a dodgy start, Lam found a way for Auckland to play and win titles.
But the worrying part about the 2008 season is that at the point of transition, where experienced players were replaced, those who came in appeared to be reading from different pages.
The flow through, which is so evident at Deans' Canterbury, was sadly missing.
This has been a bitterly disappointing season for northern rugby fans because the promise of Auckland's recent seasons has fallen flat on its face, while North Harbour have managed to fall below even their dodgy standards. And whatever Northland's heroics, they aren't going to fuel a brilliant Super 14 campaign.
There is no great evidence, or any at all, that a masterplan is at work.
I hope I'm wrong, and Lam has to be given time to show his Super 14 wares. But there is an unstable, haphazard feel to the operation. The Blues are still searching for their man.
* Manly dominated the NRL grand final like never before. They were unbelievably good against a tired Storm unit. But even in a ravaged team, Storm centre Israel Folau stood out. The young giant can chuck muscle-bound opponents around like rag dolls. Folau is off to Brisbane, who will be readjusting to life without Wayne Bennett. The old master's departure may give them new life however. And Folau could be just the player to reignite the Broncos.
* Speaking of the NRL grand final ... tell me that the pre-match entertainment didn't involve the banging of barbecues together. Really? It did. What next? Prawn peeling. Maybe Beijing set such a high standard at the Olympic opening extravaganza that the rest of the world has given up on flashy ceremonies for fear of suffering in comparison. Which isn't a bad thing come to think of it. Bring on those barbies.
* Stephen Kearney's World Cup squad is about as non-controversial as Kiwi selections get. Kearney and his sidekick, Wayne Bennett, are measured men and the picks reflect that. David Kidwell, once a certain selection, looks past his prime but he is capable of firing up for the cause and has been at the heart and soul of recent Kiwi teams. It's not the most imposing of packs and there are doubts aplenty in the halves. It would be nice to claim that this Kiwi team will be all the better without the dumber and dumber duo of Sonny Bill Williams and Frank Pritchard. Sadly, those two big bloopers will be missed. The loss of injured captain Roy Asotasi is also an enormous blow. But a tick for recycled captain Nathan Cayless, an unsung hero of sorts for the Kiwis.
