can only help but feel that the power struggle among Football South/Mainland teams in this scenario would result in either one decent team from each area being in the league (i.e. Chch Utd or Southern) with the rest made up of NRFL and Central teams, or none at all. not enough talent/money being shared around
ideal scenario for me, if we had A-League-like influence and cash, would be a 12 team national league with a second tier comprised of North Island and South Island divisions (like 1999, but a tier down). One North team and one South team go up automatically, replacing the worst team from each island