KEY POINTS:
Ambivalent. That seems the best word to describe Auckland's attitude to missing out on the national championship quarter-finals.
Oddly enough, it was also a useful word in describing the city's reaction when its team smashed all comers to take out last year's competition (not to mention when it
held the Shield for the entire late-1980s and early-1990s).
Eden Park wasn't even close to half full when last season's peerless Auckland line-up dismantled Wellington to claim its second title in three years.
Last week, when Northland knocked out the ragtag bunch representing the country's most dominant union before the quarter-finals, the crowd at Eden Park was announced as 6540.
That estimate appeared generous, although it was roughly the same size as the crowd that turned up to watch Auckland play North Harbour a week earlier.
As well as their size, the silent resignation of the crowds at those matches spoke volumes for how much people seemed to care about the plight of their teams. Barely a single boo rang out at Eden Park after the final whistle sounded to signal the end of Auckland's worst season since the national championship began.
There might not be any call for football-style goal-post levelling pitch invasions or the ritual stoning of the team bus, but surely a hearty boo or two might have been in order.
Instead, most of the people present who weren't Northlanders simply put their hands in their pockets, shuffled their feet in embarrassed silence and trudged for the exits.
The question has to be asked: If the region's fans don't really miss the playoffs, will the playoffs miss their teams?
The answer is almost certainly no.
Harbour's lone contribution to the post-season since the 14-team competition was launched was an embarrassing home loss to Otago in 2006 followed by two years of not making the cut at all.
That 2006 result still stands as the only time a home team has lost a quarter-final.
Auckland have fared better - until this year at least - but even their most impressive exploits have been greeted with general indifference.
Compare that to the sort of passion on display in the likes of Hawkes Bay, where housewives will almost certainly be getting their hair dyed black and white in preparation for Sunday's big match while their husbands ponder getting their foreheads tattooed.
The big city malaise isn't just limited to Auckland.
Canterbury have retained enough experienced players and have enough good young ones coming through to sustain their place near the top of the heap, but most of their matches have had more construction workers than fans in attendance. Otago's crowds have made AMI Stadium look like Woodstock by comparison.
Even in success-starved Wellington - which appears to be the urban centre with the best hope of pulling a reasonable crowd for the final - crowds for regular season matches have been regularly eclipsed by those of the city's soccer team.
Harbour has long been a spectator black hole while Waikato's crowds always come in on budget mainly because the union doesn't budget for many people turning up.
The on-field demise of the likes of Auckland, Otago and Harbour - and it should be remembered Waikato came within about 60 seconds of joining them - has merely reflected off-field realities.
The national championship is dying in the big cities and thriving in the provinces.
With the competition soon to serve as a development league for an expanded Super 14, that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether Auckland's fall from grace is a blip or whether the likes of Wellington and Canterbury will soon join them in the competition's lower echelon.
For this season, at least, it looks as if the metropolitan unions will maintain their grip on the title, with Wellington and Canterbury odds-on to meet in the final.
But recent developments suggest a power shift towards the more upwardly mobile provinces. Promising Hawkes Bay props Clint Newland (Otago) and Sona Taumalolo (Waikato) have both signed with Super 14 host unions. Both, however, will be loaned back to Hawkes Bay to compete in the national championship.
Hawkes Bay's ability to retain the pair's services despite their decision to switch to new Super 14 franchises shows the union has been able to exercise a degree of control over its players.
Previously those players would simply have been lost to the bigger unions.
The same arrangement is believed to be in place for Northland's Canterbury-bound prop Bronson Murray and fullback Jared Payne.
Until the introduction of franchise contracting, the loan-back option seems like a useful mechanism for preventing the host unions from stockpiling too much talent.
For the likes of Hawkes Bay, retaining key players is every bit as important as making the playoffs. You can guarantee no one in Napier will be feeling ambivalent about the news Newland and Taumalolo will be back. Nor would it be the right word to describe how they feel about the prospects of notching a fourth consecutive win over the once mighty Mooloos and booking a second semi-final in as many years.
