KEY POINTS:
Northland and Tasman could be forgiven for thinking the NZRU's obsession with windows has seen them shown the door for next year's national championship.
The governing body's desire to neatly compartmentalise the rugby calendar into defined windows is a major reason for a 12-team competition being the favoured option for the future.
The new provincial competition will be squeezed in between the club rugby and off-season windows.
That means the duration of the tournament must be 13 weeks.
With the current Air New Zealand Cup suffering from a lack of local derbies _ such as the Battle of the Bridge _ the NZRU wants a full round robin. The benefits are a saving of $1.3 million a season, the creation of a more meaningful club competition and the establishment of a defined off-season for overworked players.
A shorter competition with fewer matches each weekend addresses the concern of "rugby fatigue".
So it can be argued that dumping Northland and Tasman serves the common good. But, given the implications for rugby in those regions, is that really good enough?
That is what the NZRU board needs to consider before it drops the axe on September 25. The fundamental question is: What is the function of the national championship?
If, as most believe, it is to foster rugby in the provinces and provide a pathway for players with aspirations to play professionally, then no justification is strong enough to support the dumping of Northland.
With their internecine strife, Tasman are a different ball of wax.
But does anyone really believe Northland do not belong in the top flight while Manawatu, Bay of Plenty and Counties Manukau do? Sure, in recent years they have been run with a lack of professionalism. And they dropped a massive clanger by calling for the competition to be reduced to 12 teams without checking that they wouldn't rank in the bottom two.
But the NZRU's job is to administrate on behalf of its member unions. All of them. Northland must be accommodated, and the Heartland Championship is not a suitable competition for them.
The NZRU will say that promotion and relegation offer Northland a way back. But who would fancy a play-off match against a union that has played all season at a significantly higher level? North Otago, the Heartland champs, recently copped a 100-point hiding from an Auckland team that lost to Counties a week later. That's how big the gap is.
Any team good enough to play their way out of the Heartland will first spend a season smashing the likes of Buller and East Coast out of sight.
Is the NZRU really suggesting buggering up the Heartland Championship is for the betterment of New Zealand rugby?
Dumping Northland won't just impact on that region, the impact will be felt all over the country.
