The South Island team lost all three games but was competitive, and New Zealand Rugby vice-chairwoman Farah Palmer acknowledged the format might not have suited Matatu.
To compensate for a limited preparation, rolling subs were introduced and the games were cut to 70 minutes.
That snatched away a perceived advantage for Matatu.
In an 80-minute game without rolling substitutes, the Canterbury-based team would likely have leaned on its conditioning and fitness to exploit some weaknesses in the bigger North Island sides.
"The players who could last the full 80 ... might shine in a slightly different environment," Palmer said.
"But that decision was made just to look after their wellbeing because of the short turnaround in games.
"It wasn’t ideal and not what we wanted. But we really wanted the competition to happen, so yeah, it could have gone against Matatu in some regard."
A lot of compromises were made to get the competition under way.
It had to be cut back to just three round-robin games.
The Hurricanes Poua were forced to withdraw from their opening-round match against the Blues, which reduced the competition further.
Still, the competition got a pseudo final between the Chiefs Manawa and Blues in the final round.
The Chiefs won 35-0 in an emphatic statement.
Palmer had been nervous before the competition got under way just because "a lot was riding on it".
Would it be a good standard? Would the public embrace it? Would it provide a stepping stone for the women’s game?
"There are a few things we could tweak but I think it was a pretty good product.
"The goal with Super Rugby Aupiki was to provide a stepping stone for players between FPC and the Black Ferns.
"We wanted to try and emulate the kind of games the Black Ferns will be playing at the Rugby World Cup later on in the year."
With all those goals ticked off, the goal next year is to expand the toehold.
"I don’t know if we have enough depth at the moment for another team.
"We’ll probably just stick with the teams we’ve got and maybe we could get our neighbours in Australia interested or a Pacific team involved in the future — I don’t think that will necessarily happen soon.
"I think it is about little steps."
