Aisle be back: Hurricanes v Blues

And so on the seventh day, or was it the 70th, or 700th, Sanzar did come down from Table Mountain and lo, teams were cut and the people were joyous.

Then the attendances soared and the players too were happy, and turned their backs on foreign riches. And Super became Superb.

Now it probably won't end that way and you know it. Because the endless wrangling over Super Rugby is hiding the real problem - the decline of South African and Australian rugby.

Both are dealing with their own peculiar pressures, and it would be arrogant for New Zealanders to claim to know how to fix it.

But with both nations haemorrhaging talent, and no end in sight, New Zealand has to be very concerned. Our oldest foe, and our nearest neighbours, need to be serious challenges, not shadows of themselves.

Fiddling with Super Rugby structure may help. Closer games would help. But it feels like cosmetic surgery when something far worse is going untreated.

We're told the latest change comes after careful, evidence-based analysis. Presumably the same sort of analysis that was used to justify expansion.

So forgive me if I don't have much confidence in Sanzar, or SARFU or the ARU. 

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I can reveal the reason the Canes went from champs to chumps on Retro Night at the stadium. Someone slipped them the marketing plan, not the game plan, at halftime.

Let's face it. You thought the loveable Canes of old had been laid to rest. But there it was, in 40 minutes of goofy retro-ness. Bringing back all those bad old nightmares.

It was pretty weird at game's end on Friday night. It was like the thousands of fans gave a giant collective baffled shrug. The last thing most wanted to do was applaud.

I would normally be talking up the Blues this week at Eden Park. Last  chance saloon, a team with nothing to lose is a dangerous beast, blah blah blah.

But one would hope the Hurricanes will be mortified enough by last week to turn in a vastly-better game for the full 80. Noises from the camp suggest that maybe the case.

All I ask for is that we try to keep all the players on the field for the entire match. Those yellow cards are starting to be habitual, and it's time to kick it. The 2016 vintage had excellent discipline from memory.

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Some statistics about Tana Umaga, current head coach of the Blues, because this blog is a Sonny Bill Williams free zone.

Tana Umaga made his debut against the Blues at Palmerston North on 1 March 1996 in the very first Super Rugby match played. He played his122nd match against the Waratahs at Wellington on 5 May 2007, so coming up 10 years since he retired from the Canes. Umaga scored 47 tries and at least one try in 38 of his matches and his record in 122 Super Rugby matches was won 61, lost 60 and drawn one.

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Farewell John Clarke. He may have spent many years flourishing in Australia, but he was by all accounts a deadly passionate New Zealander.

I always remember a tiny, obscure gag he probably improvised in the Olympic satire, The Games. His character was walking past a TV showing a rugby test match.

Go Black, he muttered.

Lifelong All Blacks supporter Kev has followed the Hurricanes since they began. Last year his faith in them was rewarded when they won the title – can they do it again?