New Zealand Rugby’s CEO thinks the National Provincial Championship is no longer fit for purpose. Does the head of Counties Manukau Rugby agree? And what does the future of the competition look like?

This is an excerpt from The Bounce, a Substack newsletter by Dylan Cleaver.

“Not fit for purpose.”

They were the four words uttered by Mark Robinson, the chief executive of New Zealand Rugby, on this week’s Breakdown that seemingly condemned the future of the National Provincial Championship.

In place since 1976, the NPC was for a long time credited as the critical cog in the supply chain for the Greatest International Sports Team in History™. It was a competition that gave the All Blacks an edge because it provided a sharp step up between club and international rugby that other countries couldn’t replicate.

It was rugby with a professional attitude before rugby went professional.

Then the game did actually go professional and the southern hemisphere moved to a cross-border franchise model, pushing the NPC out to the margins. The margins are not a comfortable place to exist and, as Robinson strategically pointed out ahead of the release of the Governance Review, the NPC is no longer fit for purpose with some of the 14 unions (for ease of understanding we’re not including the Heartland unions in this analysis) operating on scales so different they might as well be from different planets rather than occupying the same space in rugby’s ecosystem.

Yet, there are undeniable merits to the NPC. In fact, the picture above illustrates two equally valid stories. Cam Roigard is about to score a try for Counties. In a few days, he’ll be on a plane to the World Cup as an All Black halfback. The NPC was a critical section of his pathway. The second story can be found in the background: there are about four paying spectators watching. Those two stories are not necessarily in conflict, but neither do they sit easily together.

The other interesting thing about Robinson’s comments was that there was nothing behind them. There were a few empty, platitudinous words but no pathway to enlightenment. To help provide some context, I’ve turned to an old counterpart. Aaron “Tommy” Lawton was a longtime sports reporter with the then-Fairfax crew before deciding his future belonged in administration not information, joining the Warriors marketing department before heading slightly further south to take up his role as Counties Manukau Rugby CEO.

I asked him three questions. Showing that his transformation to administration is complete, he skilfully avoided the first one.

Is the NPC fit for purpose?

A bigger question is whether, as a game, we should look at the entire rugby ecosystem and where everything sits and fits. We need to define what the purpose of the NPC is and where it sits alongside the other competitions like Super Rugby. We shouldn’t be afraid of robust debate or change. But if we are going to kick the tyres on this, it can’t be in isolation.

The NPC has a very, very proud history and still means a great deal for a lot of the provinces where it remains the biggest show in town. It provides a legitimate development pathway for players, coaches, administrators and support staff. Take Clayton McMillan, for example. He’s been a wonderful coach for the Chiefs since stepping up from Bay of Plenty. We have a role to play in development but that doesn’t mean we have to be wedded to the status quo.

Any suggestion that our competition needs to be kicked for touch would be failing to take into account the second-order consequences of such a decision.

How do you increase its relevance and engagement?

There is real alignment across the provinces that a 14-team truly national provincial championship has merit and warrants its place in the rugby ecosystem, but there are certainly things we need to consider to make sure it remains relevant and of interest to fans.

A genuine salary cap that all teams commit to (this might require the big provinces to lower their spend and the smaller ones increase) along with family-friendly kick-off times and a spreading of talent would be a good start. As a collective, we all (and this includes NZR) need to do a better job promoting our fixtures and our stories too. From a marketing perspective, we haven’t done the best job promoting our competition or telling our stories.

Many provincial teams include a mix of semi-professional and professional rugby players, and then others who put down the tools for three months a year and pull on their provincial colours to make their clubs and communities proud. We should celebrate that mix. It’s what makes the comp special. As an example, the Counties Manukau Steelers squad this year is largely made up of club, Super Rugby and former Steelers players who have returned from overseas. Pretty much every single player in our squad has links to this community and our fanbase has responded by showing real support for the team, win or lose.

In last week’s loss to Hawke’s Bay, we had a young panelbeater from Pukekohe [Ian West-Stevens] starting at hooker in the same pack as [All Blacks and Blues flanker] Hoskins Sotutu. Just think for a second how cool that is and the lessons the young hooker will take back to his club side next year after a season playing rugby with Hoskins.

A rising tide lifts all boats, and it’s really important in all these conversations that we shouldn’t lose sight of just how damn important community rugby is. Sometimes we get caught up in debating matters relating to competitions and forget about the other 140,000-odd players who pull on the boots each weekend across the country.

What are the right decisions to ensure the base of the game is thriving? Because ultimately some of those young people will grow up to be All Blacks and Black Ferns and they need a good rugby education on their way up.

If we conclude the NPC is no longer fit for purpose, what needs to change?

A willingness to consider the entire New Zealand rugby ecosystem and determine the purpose of each individual part. This includes all competitions, the volume of rugby, the development pathways, secondary school rugby, provincial academies and everything in between.

While there have been some well-publicised comments this week that could be construed as an “us versus them” debate, the sense at the coalface is there is more alignment and willingness to work on these big rocks together than perhaps people think.

NZR is not the enemy. Ultimately, we want the same thing: for rugby to thrive in our communities. And as kaitiaki of the game, it’s incumbent upon us to have the courage to make the right decisions for the game.

That means looking at the NPC, certainly, but not in isolation.