KEY POINTS:
There's no point in mucking about. This plea needs to go straight to the people who make the major decisions about our national rugby competition.
So, Sky TV, please, please, please change the playoff system for next year's competition. The current one is about as interesting as the
latest round of excuses for All Blacks failure.
Seeded quarter-finals and semis work okay in sports like tennis, where tournaments are straight knockout affairs from the start; or even in events such as, gulp, rugby world cups, where there are multiple pools.
But in a competition that follows pretty much a straight league format over several months, they are a rubbish way of ending the season.
There's a reason why sports like league have developed somewhat convoluted formats for determining finalists. It's to avoid meaningless mismatches at what should be the most dramatic and exciting part of the season.
The thriller between Hawkes Bay and Waikato aside, the weekend's national championship quarter-finals were a classic example of how not to do things.
Three of the mismatches that were supposed to pass for finals footy had all the tension, drama and intrigue of a pre-season game of touch at the beach.
The TAB predicted the one-sided snore-a-thons that eventuated. Wellington were $1.11 to beat Southland, Canterbury $1.07 to beat Otago and Auckland $1.04 to beat Taranaki.
The combined score in favour of those teams was 119-19.
It's time to give tedious quarter-final mismatches the big welly.
I'll go as far as suggesting that no team that finishes eighth will ever travel away from home to beat the first place finisher. It just won't happen. So what's the point of it?
I'll go farther. No team that finishes a regular season with a four-win six-loss record should even be in the playoffs in the first place.
Now, good people of Taranaki, please don't take this personally (Lord knows there's enough folk in the bush towns already practising voodoo on me). Your boys did as well as they could have hoped against Auckland on Saturday night. And they lost by 20.
A brave effort, yes. Pointless and dreary? Yes and yes.
Pretty much any system would be better than the current one, but I'd plump for the one used in the English Super League.
The top six make the playoffs. In week one, three plays six and four plays five, with the winners advancing to week two.
That would have seen Wellington play Southland and Hawkes Bay's brilliant victory over Waikato would still have taken place. But we would have been spared the weekend's two biggest mismatches.
In the second week of Super League, one plays two for a direct berth in the final, while the winners from round one play an elimination match. That would give us Auckland v Canterbury and Wellington v Hawkes Bay this weekend.
Tasty stuff.
In week three, the winner of the elimination match plays the loser of one vs two for the second final spot.
The format has its drawbacks, such as adding a week to the season and the potential for multiple matches between the same teams but, in terms of creating even, gripping encounters, it works.
Change would seem to be a no-brainer. Unless of course the body that makes those decisions happens to be a broadcaster that consistently favours quantity over quality - expanded Super 14 and Tri-Nations anyone?
A new system might be more watchable and entertaining but it would probably contain fewer matches spread over more weeks. This has never been the News Ltd way, so don't hold your breath.
And, trust me on this, it really is the broadcaster that calls the tune. In the hours after Auckland dispatched the brave and worthy Naki boys they had to wait to find out whether they should prepare for a Friday or Saturday night semifinal.
The reason? Sky was deliberating which match would prove more attractive for its primetime Saturday night slot. Hey, Sky, here's a thought: How about putting an interesting match on every night during the playoffs - and not bothering with the rubbish?
