The Otago Spirit will start its Farah Palmer Cup campaign a week later and have a bye near the end of the competition.
The draw has had to be reworked after the moving of the Covid-19 alert level made it impossible for the northern region to start this weekend.
The northern region includes sides from Auckland, North Harbour and Northland, who have all been unable to train under Alert Level 3.
The new draw pushes the competition start date out by two weeks, but still allows for teams to complete a full schedule of matches, with the final to be played on the last weekend of October.
There were various options given to provincial unions and the teams worked together to get an outcome.
Otago was set to take on Wellington on September 5 in Wellington, but its first game will now be against Hawke’s Bay at Forsyth Barr Stadium on September 13.
It will follow that match with a game against Farah Palmer Cup champion Canterbury in Christchurch on September 19.
Otago will have a bye, along with all the teams from the southern pool, on the weekend of October 9-11 and then come back to play one more game before the playoffs.
Otago will take on Wellington in its last game of pool play.
The competition has been lengthened by a week, with the final to be played on the last weekend of October.
Otago will play five games in the shortened competition. Otago has won promotion to the premiership of the Farah Palmer Cup but the competition structure has been changed to a shorter season.