The health of the global game and a desire to bring in a global calendar has come under the spotlight in the past few days after Wales just finished a season which lasted 54 weeks.
France had to play a test against Argentina earlier this month without many of its leading players who were still playing in the French Top League.
All Black coach Steve Hansen talked on Sunday about the need to get a global calendar for the game and how players were struggling with heavy workloads.
Highlanders chief executive Roger Clark said yesterday the global calendar issue had been around for a long time and there had been plenty of discussion.
New Zealand Rugby had not committed to any international fixtures beyond 2019 as it wanted to play hard ball over the fixture list.
Clark said if the midyear tours could be moved to July then that would be a big help.
"If we could have that midyear window move to July then it would make things a lot simpler. With that you could play Super rugby right the way through and get it finished,'' he said.
"Then the All Blacks could go straight into their season and play the northern teams and then play the Rugby Championship.''
The situation at the moment in which Super rugby took a break for a month and was getting under way again this weekend was not ideal.
"What we have found is that first week back can be quite tough. You've got to get everything cranked up again and get people interested again. Luckily this year we've had that buffer with two games away before coming back to the game against the Chiefs.''
He said the power and domination of the French and English clubs meant they could control players while in New Zealand the national union contracted all the players so one party made the decisions.
Meanwhile, Clark said tickets were in high demand for the match between the Highlanders and the Chiefs at Forsyth Barr Stadium on July 16.
More than 17,000 tickets had been sold already and he was hoping for a crowd of more than 18,000.
The match is shaping up as a pivotal one in a very tight New Zealand conference. The last game the Highlanders played at the stadium against the Crusaders was a sellout.
Injured All Black winger Nehe Milner-Skudder won the sport award at the inaugural Matariki awards in Auckland on Sunday night. Highlanders coach Jamie Joseph was also a finalist in the sport category.
