Chris Rattue: How to save the Blues

Kill North Harbour rugby now, before it's too late for the Blues ... But first, a confession. Call me a slicker from the city side, 'cos it's true.

When I was a kid and the family set off from Hillsborough for Whangaparaoa, you didn't just check the petrol. You jokingly thought about packing flares, a compass and map.

The North Shore was so out there that you even had to pay to get in, at a harbour bridge toll booth.

Still, it was all Auckland then, or so it seemed, until the growing North Shore forged its own identity.

We're now a sprawling mass of humanity from around the world with everything from kebabs to kilikiti yet with, I suspect, a new population in an internet world that doesn't really care about this manufactured border.

The North Shore has always seemed as Auckland to me as the Westies, or Manukau, or Waiheke Island.

We have created this divide, and it's the one I reckon David Nucifora alluded to as he tried to explain the Blues' abysmal performance in Sydney and years of hopeless Blues results.

Coach Nucifora, to be fair, was ready to shoulder some blame. And any sympathy right now has to be buried deep in a ruck because the Blues have ranged from ordinary to awful, a sum far below the potential of the parts.

Yet it is obvious to the point of boring to say the most successful Super 14 team, the Crusaders, are based around one powerful NPC province, and that Graham Henry's great Blues side was based on one NPC team. It's the answers that are lacking, although Grant Fox had a decent go in a recent column.

I've long advocated finding a way to create a North Harbour Super franchise, so the booming Auckland region gets the second team it needs and deserves.

For a start, it would create a brilliant cross-town rivalry, one this competition is crying out for. Give us a bridge-busting local derby, although I've come to accept this solution is a non-starter for now. A great pity.

Here's an irony. On the infamous Warriors video recording of their discussions with the IRB, Mick Watson and mates were at pains - on the surface - to not step on the Blues' toes with their Pasifika team concept.

Yet the stick-in-the-mud IRB bigwigs replied that a ruthless cross-town rivalry was exactly what rugby needed.

But while the New Zealand union continues to prop up the Highlanders, there is little chance of booming North Harbour getting a franchise. So it's up to the Blues to sort the situation out. Don't moan about the Crusaders. Copy them. The answer, for my money, is to relegate North Harbour as an equal of Auckland.

Here's a solution. Auckland should get first dibs on all the talent in the region at every level for its representative sides, to channel players and even coaches all the way up to the Blues. Auckland could even take over the region again, and maybe add in Northland, where the game is withering on the vine.

The NPC is a dead man crawling - the Blues should get in now and set up a truly professional operation that eliminates the NPC rivalries, which will eventually build unified fan support.

The NPC creates ridiculous conflicts within the Blues Super 14 set-up. Yet the NPC is fading fast, an anachronism that will be swamped by the professional game.

All the NPC serves to do in this part of the world is divide the Blues and let an increasing number of opponents conquer them. It is crazy to let an amateur feeder system bring down a professional team playing in a semi-global competition.

They could start this year, with Auckland getting first call on all NPC players in the region. If the NZRFU gets uppity, line up the lawyers and take the monopoly on.

The vital factor is this. The Blues need continuity of coaches, players, preparation, recruitment, scouting and playing style.

The Blues and the provinces that lie within need their heads read if they continue to allow the NPC tail to drag the Super 14 dog down.

The payback for North Harbour (and Northland) would be a much greater chance of a thriving Blues team to support, the interest it would generate in the game, and the extra money for junior football among other things. (Harbour could still retain the right to set up their own franchise in future).

The current system, in professional sport, is a joke and the Blues will find life gets increasingly tougher against fully armed and dangerous professional outfits like the chequebook-waving Waratahs.

It's time for a major pow-wow, a high-powered political summit, within the Blues. If the NPC could return to its former glory, when New Zealand rugby rivalry was at its finest, I wouldn't dare suggest this. But it can't. We've been moved on.

This area has the resources to rule the rugby world, not grovel about near the bottom of the table with some mob from Perth.

For those with a better solution, feel free.

But stop crying a good game, Blues and friends. Meaningful action will speak louder than tired words.