How times have changed. I'm really so very keen to split up NZ for next season but I can't really see a meaningful way of doing it.
You could have Northern NZ and Southern NZ but with the split not actually being the North and South islands it'd be extremely contrived.
Yeah it's sort of a thing. We don't particularly care about it though since we're fairly happy doing things via Otago, Cant, Welly, Waikato and Auckland. There isn't a proper dividing line in New Zealand because everyone hates Canterbury and Auckland in sport. We do have town vs. country sport events but its extremely minor and usually regional.
Well to be fair, "Southwestern Provinces" is most unholy unity ever so carving out something contrived wouldn't be unprecedented, but where I think that's different is that it's their only way to represent where they live at all; it'd be a shame to tear down one genuine rep side with meaning to create two meaningless ones. Looking at this thing: Which from what I've gathered is the closest thing you really have to official state borders, a pretty good CricSim split could be achieved by having Regions 1-8 play Regions 9-16, but that's basically "NZ South Island + Wellington" v "NZ North Island - Wellington", which just seems so ultimately silly to me.
Yeah just divide by our actual sporting lines ie well cant otago vs wai auck but give it a better name.