If anyone does then he is a retard. He is a retard because, like the NZRFU, he is missing the point of the Air New Zealand Cup. The Cup is not about sleek or slim-line. It is not about big moolah and full stadia. It is not a little brother to the Vodafone-Telecom-Ford-Viacom-Canterbury Clothing-Sky TV-Mermaids High Class Hookers - Weetbix - sponsored Super-however-the-f**k-many-teams-the-sponsors-want-in-it-this-week. It is, rather, the last vestige of a link to the dying club rugby scene - a scene that has been shamefully neglected outside of the Big Five unions since the advent of professionalism. For this reason alone, we should be concerned because we can be pretty certain that this cull won't be the last. As every good politician knows, making big, wholesale changes is suicidal; better to make small, incremental ones so that one day, in the hazy future, people wake up to realise that they've got nothing and that they're not getting it back.

And let's face it: based on our crowds, we're no dead certs for a long life. For sure, we're less likely to be put out to pasture than B.o.P or Manawatu but the Sword of Damocles is likely to be held by Auckland and swung towards us in the threatening form of a merger. It's already being mooted on a local government level.

The putting out to pasture of Northland rugby heralds yet another small step towards what we've suspected since the introduction of Super rugby: the Air New Zealand Cup is an irritation to the powers-that-be. It exposes the bigger, money-laden, powerful unions as average, despite their wealth. It highlights that, without their AB superstars - superstars who have often been lured from poorer unions - the lauded playing power of the Big Five (Canterbury perhaps being the exception) is a big myth.

It doesn't have to be this way. We've suggested it before and we'll keep on doing so. Make our Super-14 teams the sides that finish in the top five of the Air New Zealand Cup. Give each of the top five sides six draft picks from any team outside of the top five. Fifteen of the 30 draft picks can be made by the NZRFU and 15 can be made by the provinces themselves. That way, the Air New Zealand Cup becomes a relevant, fair competition that offers players not only the chance to play at the top sub-test level, but incentive to stay with their home province. Each of the 12 sides plays the others once. Get rid of the semis and final. It's a championship competition and the winners should be the teams that are best over the whole season. And pay 'em accordingly. Take all that Super 14 cash and plow it into the NPC wages. Hike the wages of the teams who make the top five and the draft players.

Our concern is Harbour. Harbour play in the Air New Zealand Cup. The Air New Zealand Cup needs teams like Northland. If you think we give a shit if fans of the Big Five, the All Blacks, or the Super 14 don't like our proposal, then you're f**king dreaming.