The Crusaders and Hurricanes provided timely reminders of why most of us are interested in rugby.

I’ll freely admit I didn’t tip either to beat the Blues and Chiefs, in their respective Super Rugby Pacific clashes last weekend.

Both performances were of considerable merit and got people talking about rugby, for a change.

Otherwise the week was dominated by Rob Penney saying the quiet part out loud, and the New Zealand Rugby Players’ Association (NZRPA).

Both stories, to me at least, were an absolute bore.

The NZRPA one still has legs in it, though, given Thursday’s meeting at New Zealand Rugby (NZR), where provincial unions are being told to vote the players’ way or else.

I don’t know whether Proposal 1 or Proposal 2 – as they’re known – is vastly better than the other.
But I do like a bit of chaos and have never been particularly taken with the NZRPA.

So, I’d like to see the unions go with Proposal 2 and force the NZRPA to make good on its threat to dispense with NZR and form its own governing body.

Time was when players played. When they didn’t also know everything there was to know about the commercial side of the game or how to construct and operate a board of directors.

But, as they showed with their objections to NZR’s deal with Silver Lake, our players are accomplished businessmen and women, with an acute understanding of image rights, wealth sharing and marketing our national teams to the world.

Honestly, some people just get all the talent. Me? I can hardly tie a shoelace. But your average All Black is savvy across so many spheres.

Not to mention corporate governance. Yes, not content with telling NZR who they can take money off – and how much of it they’d like for themselves – our erstwhile players now want to decide how the organisation is run.

If that’s not to their satisfaction, then they’ll convene a breakaway outfit of their own. Splendid.

I see folk saying that the rugby public and NZR themselves need to move with the times.

That the model that’s brought sustained excellence through much of the All Blacks’ history is broken and no longer fit for purpose.

Look, I’ve rarely found reason to pat NZR on the back over the years and won’t suddenly start now.

But I do find the continued arrogance of the NZRPA breathtaking and, if I’ve got a choice between actual rugby administrators of longstanding or players – when it comes to governing the game – I’m afraid I have to come down on the side of the fish heads.

There’s a bit of myth and legend where the All Blacks are concerned.

Foibles and faux pas are often overlooked, to burnish the legend of these fearsome and faultless men in black.

But, if the team is built on anything, it is its storied historical foundations. Players regularly talk of the legacy they’ve inherited and their commitment to leaving the jersey better than they found it.

I even believe it, some of the time. So what I can’t understand, where the NZRPA has been concerned in recent years, is why the current custodians of this sacred jersey seek to tarnish it.

Can they not see that they are dishonouring those who came before them and potentially creating a worse environment for those who’ll come after them?

The game is going broke in this country and all I see is players wanting more money, more rest, more sabbaticals and more say in every part of the elite game’s governance.

Never mind grassroots. To hell with club and provincial rugby.

Do these guys and gals feel no debt to the people who put them on this pathway? To the clubs, schools and volunteers that gave them the opportunity to showcase their talents on the world stage?

Are they not just the slightest bit grateful to be as admired and wealthy as they are today? If NZR has got things wrong in the last 10 or 20 years, it’s because it went away from its knitting.

It sought to make decisions for cultural, rather than rugby reasons. It stopped running a sport and veered haphazardly into social engineering instead.

The clue’s in the name: New Zealand Rugby. It’s not All Blacks or Black Ferns Rugby.

This should be a game for all New Zealand, run on a model that benefits everyone who participates in it, not just the pampered few who are currently at the top of the pyramid.

If our players were paid a pittance, as cricketers were before Kerry Packer, then maybe I’d feel different.

Long after World Series Cricket the game, at least in New Zealand, still wasn’t awash with cash, which is how NZRPA chief executive Rob Nichol first rose to prominence.

Then of the cricket players’ association, Nichol didn’t care for how New Zealand Cricket ran that sport and threatened strike action from the players. Well, 22 years on, I hope Nichol’s latest threat isn’t a hollow one.