A New Zealand-only Super Rugby competition was unsustainable former All Black and Hurricanes' assistant coach Cory Jane said in the wake of his side's win over the Blues at the weekend.
New Zealand teams couldn't continue to go around knocking each other about in a constant diet of local derbies.
A competition involving more teams was necessary because it would extend the season, which would be better than playing New Zealand-only teams three or four times in a competition.
He favoured a closer liaison with Australia.
"I know their competition looks a little bit different at the moment when they are playing over there. At times it looks like a touch game, it's quite quick, but when they're on, when you get a good Brumbies team or Waratahs team that's full of confidence, a Reds team that's physical and into you, it's still hard to play them," he said.
It was easy to write them off but when they were on their game they could play good rugby and it would be good to have them in the competition next year, he said.
Jane said having second five-eighths Ngani Laumape in the sort of form he demonstrated against the Blues, not least twice beating fellow All Black Beauden Barrett, once with an outside break and the second by running over him, it was exciting.
"When you see the confidence that Ngans comes out with when he has a good carry or when he gets involved with a good chase down the sideline to make a good tackle…stuff like that that he gets pride from, that's what gets him excited," he said.
Jane said that if Laumape continued to play the way he did at the weekend, it would be interesting to see how the national selectors saw him.
While he had been in and out of Test teams, there were parallels with former All Black and Hurricane second five-eighths Ma'a Nonu in his career.
He, like Laumape, had been a good ball runner but had to keep working on the passing and kicking elements of his game.
"Ma'a became one of the best passing 12s [second five-eighths] in world rugby. He also took a little time to understand his game and I think Ngans is flooded between trying to pass too much and think a bit too much and trying to figure out his game.
"But when you have a big foundation where you can run the ball hard and put teams under pressure, that's a good spot to be in and then slowly, make the right decisions around that. There has to be opportunities for him, he's a decent player," he said.