My plan for the Air New Zealand Cup

Here is my hypothetical plan for a future Air New Zealand Cup competition layout. It is based largely on the system the NFL uses to decide the draw in its Championship.

There will be 5 Divisions, all of equal standing.

The Northern Division
- Northland
- North Harbour
- Auckland

The Lower North Division (unimaginatively named i know)
- Counties Manukau
- Waikato
- Bay Of Plenty

The Central Division
- Taranaki
- Manawatu
- Hawkes Bay

The Southern Division
- Tasman
- Otago
- Southland

The Unaligned Division
- Wellington
- Canterbury

For the Northern, Lower North, Central and Southern Divisions the draw will look something like this per team;

- Play at home and away against the two other teams in the same division. (4 Games)
- Play against one of the Unaligned Division teams. (1 Game)
- Play against two teams from each other division aside your own division and the Unaligned Division. (6 Games) OR a 2nd game against one of the Unaligned Division teams.

All equating to an eleven game season.

A hypothetical draw for a team like Taranaki would look like this;

1)Taranaki at Hawkes Bay (1st Inter- Division Game)
2)Canterbury at Taranaki (Unaligned Division Game)
3)Taranaki at North Harbour (1st Outer- Division Game)
4)Manawatu at Taranaki (2nd Inter- Division Game)
5)Taranaki at Tasman (2nd Outer- Division Game)
6)Counties Manukau at Taranaki (3rd Outer- Division Game)
7)Taranaki at Auckland (4th Outer- Division Game)
8)Hawkes Bay at Taranaki (3rd Inter- Division Game)
9)Taranaki at Waikato (5th Outer- Division Game)
10)Southland at Taranaki (6th Outer- Division Game)
11)Taranaki at Manawatu (4th Inter- Division Game)

The Unaligned Division's draw will be different considering it is the smallest division.

Therefore Wellington and Canterbury will play each other twice and the remainder of its games against teams from outside its division.

Post- Season Play

Eight teams will progress to the post season.
Five of those teams will be teams that have won their respective division by having more points or better strength of record than any other team in their division.
The other three teams will be the three teams that didnt win their divison but had the best records outside of the 5 division champions.
So by using this method on the 2009 standings who would of made the playoffs?

Teams Points
Canterbury 47 Unaligned Division Champion- 1st seed
Wellington 43 Wildcard Team- 6th seed
Southland 41 Southern Division Champion- 2nd seed
Hawkes Bay 41 Central Division Champion- 3rd seed
Auckland 39 Northern Division Champion- 4th seed
Waikato 37 Lower Northern Division Champion- 5 seed
BOP 32 Wildcard Team- 7th seed
Taranaki 28 Wildcard Team- 8th seed
Tasman 28
Otago 27
Manawatu 24
Nth Harbour 20
Northland 16
Counties 12

So the 1st round of playoffs would have been

Canterbury(1) v Taranaki(8)
Southland(2) v BOP(7)
Hawkes Bay(3) v Wellington(6)
Auckland(4) v Waikato(5)

Advantages
- More local derbies
- A bigger focus on provincial pride
- Playoff races
- 14 game season
- Room for expansion (15 teams would be more logical)