Or is that the conspicuous problem no-one is supposed to mention — like the bye round and how to solve it?
Pirates dropped out of the Dunedin premier grade in 2017 and the equilibrium disappeared with them. But said bye did not become a concern until the past few years.
Post-Covid, there was no appetite to return to a full double round. The clubs were not keen to drop down to just one round either.
The solution has been to play a round and a-half, which is a problem when you also have an odd number of teams.
Nothing computes. This season, for example, Dunedin, Taieri, University and Green Island will not get a bye during the opening half-round and therefore will play one more game than the other five teams. They also started the season with opportunity to play for one more competition point.
It is messy.
To restore the balance, the competition either has to go back to a full double round, or the half round needs to go.
Clubs have not been keen on either idea.
The other option is to acknowledge the elephant on the wing and accept it may be time to cut the premier grade to eight teams.
Are there really enough quality premier players to field nine competitive teams? Some lopsided results this season suggest otherwise.
A lack of player depth is pretty much the No 1 complaint we hear from the premier grade coaches, so adding a 10th team is not a realistic option.
Reducing the grade to eight teams would eliminate the need for a bye and simplify the competition structure.
There are a few ways to achieve the cull outside natural attrition.
The bottom-placed team could drop down to the premier development grade and have the opportunity to fight its way back into the top grade through a promotion-relegation game.
The other way would be for a couple of clubs to merge.
The Harbour Hawks have, in the past, been vocal about looking for a club to cosy up with. They previously sounded out Alhambra-Union and Zingari-Richmond but to no avail.
Senior cricket in Dunedin got rid of its bye round by engineering a merger between Kaikorai and Carisbrook-Dunedin. It cut the competition from seven to six teams.
The new CDK super club went on to win back-to-back titles but slipped back this summer and finished last.
Pruning the number of teams is a big step because you are effectively giving up on developing the competition and that is not healthy for the game.
But neither is the bye or hopelessly one-sided encounters.
