Wynne Gray: Safety valve for major unions wrong

If it is good enough for the New Zealand Rugby Union to accept all 14 teams into this year's NPC, then they should all get an equal chance to qualify in the top 10 for next year's new competition.

But the way chief executive Steve Tew is talking, the NZRU has given itself some safety valve clauses in case a side like Manawatu qualify and one of the big guns, say Canterbury, do not make it into the top group.

Using last year as a guide, Auckland, North Harbour, Counties and Manawatu would have been cut and obviously the NZRU got the jitters about the repeat prospect of losing one or more of the "major" sides.

Too bad, I say. That is competition. And think of the benefits for areas outside the muddled megalopolis of wider Auckland if players gravitate towards those other regions.

It is also unfair to sheet home most of the blame at Tew for the provincial competition mess. He is the chief executive who will channel ideas, the public face of the NZRU who is left to explain all his organisation's weird and wonderful theories to the public. Meanwhile the men who make or rubberstamp the ideas remain out of the public eye.

It is timely to recall the identity of those board members with voting rights.

Jock Hobbs is chairman, with his colleagues being Ken Douglas, Mike Eagle, Ivan Haines, Graham Mourie, Mark Peters, Wayne Peters, Bill Thurston and Gerard van Tilborg.

Sorting out the NPC may be as tough as eating an apple with false teeth. The swag of letters which come across this desk indicates the range of ideas and opinions the NZRU must also be dealing with.

Whatever the decision, there will be dissenters. But this nonsense has been going on since 2005. The NZRU and the board have been appointed and elected to lead rugby in this country.

They have managed to get themselves all scrubbed up to travel the world, deliver their ideas and win the rights for New Zealand to stage the next World Cup. They have been able to reach an agreement with their Sanzar partners on their best strategies to take the professional game forward for the Super series and Tri-Nations.

But the NZRU has danced around making decisions on the NPC for way too long. The IRB is lampooned in this country for its inability to sort out issues, but the NZRU is the same with provincial rugby.

Every time there is a change, there is more confusion.

Think an even number of teams, think geographical sense, think promotion-relegation, think let's do it.

If some provinces need financial assistance, then the NZRU should bail them out. After all, it agreed to underwrite the Highlanders for the next two years and they are supposed to be a professional franchise.