The Council of Rugby Clubs has axed the playoffs for the minor placings in the Dunedin premier competition.
While the top six teams will this weekend fight it out for a spot in the semifinals, the bottom three teams were meant to engage in their own playoffs of sorts — the major prize being the lofty title of seventh-best club team in the city.
Hardly attractive and Alhambra-Union and Green Island decided they would rather not, thank you very much.
Zingari-Richmond was keen but the clubs voted to prune the games from the schedule at a meeting on Monday night.
CRC chairman Paul Dwyer said initially the games were planned to provide the players more playing opportunities.
Covid-19 had shortened the season, so the unloved games like the playoff for seventh, eighth and ninth made sense in that context.
The clubs were keen as well. It gave them an opportunity to generate revenue through the clubrooms.
But the re-emergence of Covid-19 has stripped that argument bare.
Under Alert Level 2, people have been asked not to attend games and consequently the clubrooms have been rather empty.
"When we set the concept up, you’ve got to remember we were trying to get as many games in as we could," Dwyer said.
"Club rugby was only going to have one round and the more home games you could have — the clubs would have a better chance of surviving financially."
One of the reasons Green Island did not want to participate in the minor placing playoffs was so it could support its junior club and get them through the clubrooms.
"From a practical point of view, it was the only decision we could make," Dwyer said.
In the top six playoffs, Taieri hosts Southern at Peter Johnstone Park, Kaikorai plays University at Bishopscourt and Dunedin will play Harbour at Kettle Park.
The matches get under way at 3pm.
"We’re going to live stream all three and we will have the Dunedin versus Harbour game live streamed on the Otago Daily Times website."