Taranaki coach Neil Barnes is hoping to see the end of the NPC's two-tier structure from next season, believing the divisional split has served its intended purpose.
Since 2011, the NPC has been split into two divisions, with teams placed in either the top tier Premiership, or secondary Championship.
Each season, teams in the Championship would play for the chance to be promoted, while those in the Premiership would play to win the NPC title.
Due to the gap between the competition's best and worst sides, the two-tier structure was implemented to avoid mismatches between the bigger and smaller teams, and provide context to matches not involving the unions towards the top end of the table.
But in 2021, that structure appears to have reached its apex.
On Saturday, Taranaki will face Otago in the Championship final, boasting a perfect record of nine wins from nine matches so far. For context, Premiership finalists Waikato and Tasman have lost four and three games respectively.
To rub salt into the wounds, Taranaki will not be promoted to the Premiership regardless, with the promotion-relegation aspect scrapped after Auckland's three teams were forced to withdraw from the competition earlier this year.
Taranaki coach Barnes points to the fact that the competition's best team will finish the season without real reward as reason to re-think how the NPC is structured.
"Obviously we are very determined," Barnes tells Newshub.
"But we're playing for the Championship title, the NPC title is another thing. That's what disappoints me in the whole competition structure at the moment.
"Right at the moment, I'm hoping there'll be change next year so that anybody in the competition can win the big prize.
"I'd actually say, without doubt, that Otago and ourselves would be more than a match for both the two teams playing in the Premiership final.
In many aspects, the two-tier structure has been a success in closing the gap between sides.
In 2011, Tasman finished at the bottom of the NPC's Championship, with two wins and eight defeats from the season. Fast forward 10 years, Tasman won back-to-back Premiership titles in 2019 and 2020, after being promoted in 2014.
Examples such as Tasman's back up Barnes' assertion that the gap between the bigger and smaller sides has closed.
"At the end of the day, the competition format that we have at the moment has fitted its purpose, quite a few years ago when there was a big gap between the top and the bottom," he adds.
"Anyone that wants to look into the results this year from right across the competition sees that it's close as.
"Reuben Thorne [Canterbury coach] mentioned halfway through the competition, there's not the gaps that there were in the past. A lot of his fans are expecting Canterbury to be winning games well, but they're struggling.
"But that's just the nature of the competition at the moment, it's tight."
Join Newshub from 2pm Saturday for live updates of the NPC Championship and Premiership finals.
