There is no rush to carry out rapid surgery on the Dunedin premier club competition and the Otago union is trying hard to help out clubs which are struggling.
University racked up 20 tries in a 137-0 victory over Zingari-Richmond on Saturday, the biggest score recorded in the competition.
Coming hard on Pirates nearly defaulting two weeks before through a lack of players, questions have been asked about whether a 10-team competition is sustainable and whether the competition is doing anything for the Otago provincial team.
Otago Rugby Football Union general manager Richard Kinley said the union was working hard with clubs to try to get them successful.
The union had appointed Simon Wallace to a new role of clubs and schools liaison officer and he had started his role yesterday.
Kinley said the union did not want to make changes just because of the scoreline from one premier game.
‘‘The last thing we want to do is have a knee-jerk reaction to one result. It was only two years ago when Green Island was hammered by more than 100 points, yet they have met the challenge and improved,'' Kinley said.
‘‘You can't just look at the scoreline in isolation. There are a lot more factors to it and we have already been working with Zingari-Richmond and Pirates about their issues.''
He said no discussion had taken place about going down to eight teams.
A club forum would be held in July when all issues would be on the table, including the structure of the competition in the future.
The match at Montecillo on Saturday was called off early by referee Mitchell Will. Zingari-Richmond had already lost a prop, another prop had just gone down injured and the team did not have another prop on the bench.
With less than 10 minutes left in the game, and University heading for 150, Will decided to rule fulltime. Will could not be contacted yesterday.
Zingari-Richmond chairman Murray Collie said the result was pretty depressing and club members were not happy with the result.
‘‘The players, the management, and the coaches, weren't happy and you wouldn't expect them to be,'' he said.
‘‘But we'll move on. We'll have a chat about it this week and look to put in a much better performance this week against Alhambra-Union.''
The side had lost 10 players from last year's squad - many of them key players such as lock Joe Latta and midfield back Lachie Moore - and with another five players out of Saturday's game through injury and unavailability, the side was down to its bare bones.
Otago coach Cory Brown, who is also the director of coaching at the union, said it was disappointing to see a scoreline of that magnitude and some clubs were struggling.
Gaps between clubs were getting bigger and the amount of quality players playing in Dunedin was getting smaller.
Some players were being forced to play premier rugby when they were not quite ready for it. It was not an easy solution to fix and would take time.
Going to eight teams was not something he supported.
He said if the competition went to eight clubs, then how long would it be before there was the suggestion to go down to six teams.
