According to the Wellington (NZ) newspaper The Dominion Post representatives from provincial teams North Harbour, Wellington, Canterbury, Auckland, Waikato, Otago, Hawke's Bay, Taranaki and Southland have been meeting in recent weeks over a restructure and realignment of Southern Hemisphere and New Zealand domestic rugby. They are exploring a "new direction because they felt that the Super 14 competition had reached its use-by date", The Dominion Post said.
The newspaper reports that the abovementioned unions wanted to replace Super 14 with a trans-Tasman home-and-away competition involving nine New Zealand teams and five from Australia and excluding South Africa altogether. This would mean doing away with New Zealand's premier domestic competition, the Air NZ Cup, according to the report.
Good thing they were shot down for the idea though.