Editorial: Performance on the field is what matters

Opinion

Phoniness pervades this year's Air New Zealand Cup rugby championship. In many areas, there has been a resurgence of provincial pride and heightened interest.

Yet, somewhat bizarrely, that has as much to do with matters off the field as to which team hoists the winner's trophy on November 7. Attention is focused on the four provinces that must be relegated under a new format devised by the New Zealand Rugby Union for next season. Strangest of all, those teams will not be the ones that finish in the bottom four spots in this season's competition. By just about any yardstick of fairness, on-field performance would determine what provinces are represented in next year's 10-strong premier division and which four will play in a six-team division one.

The union, however, wants nothing of this. It has released a complicated set of on and off-field criteria that it plans to use to determine which provinces will be relegated.

These involve population (10 per cent), community rugby (25 per cent), playing history (20 per cent), player development (15 per cent) and financial position and performance (30 per cent). All the criteria will be averaged over four years, between 2006 and 2009.

In part, this is designed to weed out provinces that have struggled financially in what, according to the union, has become an unsustainableformat. Further, the averaging out over a number of seasons means a successful one-off performance this year will not save a team from being dropped.

By these criteria, the provinces facing relegation have already been largely identified.

At the head of the queue are Tasman, Counties Manukau, Manawatu and Northland. Yet all claimed the scalp of one of the five Super bases (Auckland, Waikato, Wellington, Canterbury and Otago) last year and most have produced similarly competitive performances this season.

The Air New Zealand Cup has become far more even in large part because of the salary cap imposed by the rugby union. It has allowed provinces such as Hawkes Bay to retain their best players and to build impressive teams. Yet that largely untrumpeted success is now in danger of being supplanted by the union's wish to protect the Super rugby bases. The easiest way of doing this is exempting them from demotion, no matter how bad their on-field performance. And no matter how much this will mean the teams that are demoted will lose their top players and struggle to return to their present strength.

Other sports have no such qualms about relegation. Manchester United and Chelsea have both spent time outside English football's top tier.

They won promotion soon enough, and it did them no lasting damage. Arguably, it helped them identify and address the problems behind their slumps.

Would it do Auckland any harm to be demoted to the Air New Zealand Cup's first division? Its on-field performance this year and last has been poor, and its slender contribution to senior national age-grade teams suggests it would not fare well under the player development criterion.A glance at last season's table reveals the reasons for the rugby union's unease. Had relegation been instigated then on the basis of on-field performance, the demoted teams would have been Auckland, North Harbour, Counties Manukau and Manawatu. It was not a possibility then, of course. It should be now. It is unfair for the Super bases to be protected if their playing performance is substandard. It is even more unfair that provinces in the traditional heartland, some of which are making a good fist of re-creating former glories, are to be sacrificed in the process.

The union should look again at retaining the 14-team format. If this is not possible, performance on the paddock should be all that matters.