Let's back the truck up a bit. Before we go spraying the NZRU with too many bullets, perhaps we need to ask ourselves one important question: has New Zealand's main provincial competition had its day?

Or rather, is it no longer the championship that we like to think it is?

Indeed, the notion that the Air NZ Cup, which is the modern incarnation of the beloved NPC, remains the fabulously elite and passion-inducing provincial competition of days gone by appears now to be a fanciful one.

With All Blacks now all but removed from the provincial equation and the Super 14 set for some major growth in the not-too-distant future, it is a glaring reality that New Zealand's once flagship provincial competition has suffered a major downgrade.

That much is certainly obvious on the playing field where, for one reason or another, standards are well down on the "good old days". Fan and media interest also appear to have suffered a similar decline.

When you get 3000 Cantabs turning out to watch their second-placed Red 'n Blacks battle the third-placed Hawke's Bay Magpies, surely that must raise a red flag or two. Similarly in Auckland, the latest edition of the Battle of the Bridge passed almost wholly unnoticed in a city gripped with Warriors fever, the annual pre-game breakfast having to be cancelled due to a severe lack of interest.

The provincial competition is now effectively the third tier of New Zealand rugby, and with the top two levels of test and Super football both stretching their borders, it's becoming increasingly a development stage, rather than an elite one.

In other words, the provincial game is now the club rugby of the professional era.

Which brings us to the NZRU's fumbling efforts to rationalise the provincial competition.

Currently it sits at 14 teams which is an absurdly high number if the competition has any ambitions to retain its elite status.

The more realistic figure, in that case, would sit somewhere around eight, which would then allow for a competitive second division to be created. (And if that sounds familiar, that's because it was the system operated so successfully until the national body, in its wisdom, decided to drastically alter the provincial landscape.)

There is neither the depth of talent, the dollars to go around, nor the fan interest to sustain a legitimate professional provincial competition of 14 teams. So, in a sense the NZRU are wise to be wielding the axe, even if it is a situation of their own making.

But, on the other hand, if the Air NZ Cup is simply a development tier and a trial ground for Super 14 selection, then indeed 14 is not a bad sort of number. The more the merrier, as they say.

The problem is, no one seems to be able to make their mind up over just where provincial rugby now sits in the New Zealand scheme of things.

The NZRU, always fearful of upsetting its constituency, continues to perpetuate the myth that the provincial game remains an important and vibrant level of our rugby.

Yet at the same time they're selling the All Blacks to the world and locked in discussions about a Super competition that could double in size.

All of which highlights the shenanigans of the last week at HQ where the NZRU board has effectively outvoted its own administration in deciding to grant a stay of execution for the condemned Northland and Tasman outfits.

On the surface the national body appears in some sort of disarray, with the left hand apparently unaware of the right hand's activities.

With the national body's own comprehensive review - led by chief executive Steve Tew and his new right-hand man Neil Sorensen - having decided that, indeed, 14 teams was two too many for the Air NZ Cup, it had been decided through a complex set of criteria that Northland and Tasman should be the two to drop down.

Predictably this has been met with a hue and cry from the affected regions (though in Tasman's case there have been some mysteriously mixed signals), some threats of legal action and a major backtrack. Both Northland and Tasman stay for now, though the dysfunctional South Island hybrid union appears to be on borrowed time.

To me it boils down to this:

If provincial rugby is now just a feeder into the Super game, then leave it as it is, take the All Blacks off the wage bill and let it play its part in the production line of Kiwi talent.

But if there is any hope of sustaining the Air NZ Cup as an elite event worthy of major interest and coverage then start trimming it back now. And the best way to do this is toss out the criteria list and introduce relegation. Two next year. Another two the following. End of story.

Create a legitimate second division, and once everything settles down have promotion and relegation between the two which always adds to interest.

Right about now it seems the only successful level of provincial rugby operating well is the Heartland Championship. Maybe that's why Marlborough is so desperate to get back there.