"If you put all the interests together and take account of all the constraints, I'm confident we've got a good result," he said.
Translation: We've done our best to mitigate the damage.
But in Riach's view, there is "less is more" with this format, and that's to decrease the number of NZ vs NZ games, which apparently do more harm than good.
"We know the fans love them, they're commercially an important part of what we do, but the players are going head to head with their mates and it's pretty brutal footy and we don't want too much of that in terms of leading into All Black campaigns," Riach told Firstline.
"You want just enough but not too much and I think that's what this does."
Are. You. Kidding. Me?
So, to recap, we cannot select strong and truly tested All Black teams if the guys who are contesting each of those jersey's are doing a foolish thing like playing each other regularly?
And again, for the almighty television dollar, it is better to have reasonable ratings in front of the two-thirds empty stadiums caused by unenlightened New Zealand supporters staying away from Cheetahs and Lions matches which don't inspire provincial passions.
Even now, Chiefs vs Crusaders is usually a good crowd in Hamilton, as is Hurricanes vs Blues in Wellington, while Highlanders vs Crusaders is just about the only prospect of a sellout for a regular season game in New Zealand whether it's in Dunedin or Christchurch.
But we're wrong, says Riach, we should rush to watch the Cheetahs and Lions. And get up at 3.30am on a Sunday to check them out too.
"They create the flavour for our competition and if you just played the New Zealand teams then the competition over time, I'm sure, would look very different and wouldn't have the same appeal.
"Combating the South African players on their home turf, all of those issues are very much a part of what this competition is about.
"You can't just keep running into the same teams week in, week out, because I can guarantee that over a short period of time, the fans would start to see that as boring and the same old, same old."
Speaking of competitions where people question the value, by the time you read this the result will be known for Friday night's Anzac league test, where the Kiwis were relying on rookies and reserve graders to carry them to their first win in the fixture for 16 years.
People need to remember the ARL granted the NZRL's request to schedule the annual test around the late April, early May period (hence the Anzac moniker) specifically because it was felt the Kiwis would not have a dog show against a Kangaroos outfit selected from the best players who were battle-hardened from playing in June's State of Origin series.
And what is State of Origin?
It's mate against mate, in a local derby of three games between the same two teams, playing each other "fortnight in and fortnight out", from which an unbeatable national team is chosen.
But hey, according to Hamish Riach, that's just boring.
