Richard Loe: Air New Zealand Cup plans look a real dog

The NZRU'S attempts to restructure the Air New Zealand Cup have been a dismal failure so far - and everything I have seen so far this year suggests it will once again be an abject exercise.

This time the difference is that the NZRU could do some real damage to the game it is supposed to be safeguarding.

On both of the past two years, the NZRU were thwarted in their efforts to re-draw the Air NZ Cup boundaries when two layers of professional rugby were proving too expensive and difficult to maintain.

Fair enough, the NZRU has had to bail out unions like Tasman - but the key factor now is that things have changed.

The Air NZ Cup, which looked forlorn when it began, has taken off. It has done so across the board, with teams evenly matched, with most sides capable of beating any other, and with crowds in the grassroots, heartland areas pleasingly strong.

But the NZRU seems incapable of adjusting to this and seems set on pressing ahead with plans to drop Tasman, Northland, Manawatu and Counties Manukau into the new six-team first division - some of the very areas where support is strongest.

By any measure, this new division looks a dog. No-one, it seems, wants it, wants to play in it or wants to watch it.

Provincial rugby is so important to the New Zealand game. It is a feeder to Super rugby and then to All Black rugby. I think the NZRU have forgotten that.

The problem is money - and yet it is the NZRU and Mr Steve Tew and Co who have helped cause the problem.

They have insisted on the unions pouring buckets of dollars into stadium and other improvements.

So we are watching Okara Park being redeveloped - for what? So they can go down to division one?

Look, provincial rugby is all about playing at home and then heading off to someone else's dungheap the next weekend.

It's the same in Tasman and, in Manawatu, I heard one supporter complaining about the union having to bow to NZRU pressure to appoint about six rugby development officers, all probably pulling down $50,000 a year - so that's another $300,000.

Small wonder the petitions being got together in these places are gaining so much traction. Even non-rugby people in these areas are coming to the party and are acknowledging that the Air NZ Cup has been good for their area.

The NZRU can only see the All Blacks and Super rugby. They do not see that they are damaging the pathway that leads players up from club rugby through provincial and to Super rugby and above.

Many players don't see it either. Look at Andrew Hore, Tony Woodcock and Ma'a Nonu in France right now, promoting lamb. I am a lamb farmer so what they are doing is great - but they should be here, playing provincial rugby and not on a commercial junket.

If money is the problem, then cut the Air NZ Cup salary cap across the board and retain all teams. I'm told it would cost less than a million dollars more than the current plans. Is anyone seriously suggesting that the NZRU couldn't do that?

Or cut the payments to individual players in the Cup, so all teams can be retained. I believe many players are paid too much to play at provincial level. I don't believe that players would then head overseas - they aren't worth much if they haven't played Super rugby.

We must retain the desirability of playing at Cup level. It's the ideal breeding ground and feeder territory and it's an ideal place for injured All Blacks, like Conrad Smith for example, to begin their rehab.

Tew and Co helped cause the problem for unions like Tasman yet, on a per player basis and on a per capita basis, I'd bet Tasman is doing no worse than Auckland.

Look at the mess Auckland/the Blues are in right now - are Andy Dalton and his management team going to be tipped out and their team taken down to division one? I don't think so...

There has to be a better way. The NZRU seem fixated on their course of action, even though there are viable alternatives. They need to find a way to nourish the game they command, not starve it.