Radio Sport Home-and-away derbies could be on the way out in Super Rugby when the competition restructures in 2016.
New Zealand Rugby Players association boss Rob Nichol says they'd rather play everyone once than the home-and-away local derbies.
He says while the local match-ups are popular with fans, the integrity of playing every other team once is important.
"The message from the players at the moment is we'd take the travel to South Africa if the reward was a competition of integrity, where everyone plays everyone and perhaps a round robin.
"So it becomes a series of trade-offs."
Nichol says players want to take on every other team in the competition.
"It's something that players have given us a really strong message around."
Nichol says he doesn't believe including Argentine and Japanese teams is the right step for the next expansion.
Super Rugby's stakeholders will meet in London on Friday and Dublin next week to try and find agreement on the way forward for the tournament after South Africa rejected a two conference system.
Super Rugby's organizers SANZAR had proposed a two conference system in order to accommodate South Africa's demand for a sixth team but this was rejected.
Teams within each conference play each other twice on a home and away basis but they only play four out of the five teams in the other conferences.
This means that some teams miss out on playing the top teams and get an easier season.
Using the two conference system that was proposed the South African teams would play in one conference and then the 10 New Zealand and Australian teams would play in another conference.
All teams would play the teams in their own conferences and then only play the teams outside their conference in a 12-team playoff format.
However South Africa rejected that proposal as it mimics the Currie Cup and would not have too much appeal for local fans.
SANZAR now hope to reach agreement on a new tournament format but it is already clear that all parties will have to compromise on some level.
Each of the three SANZAR nations - South Africa, Australia and New Zealand - want different things out of Super Rugby and they will all need to make compromises.
South African Rugby Union (SARU) president Oregan Hoskins told the Cape Times that South African teams are playing each other too often and that interest in local derbies has waned due to the frequency of these matches.
"My personal opinion - and I will canvass our franchises about this and I would think that they would support our proposal - our firm mandate is that we need to push as hard as possible for what is in the best interest of South African rugby, which is a 17-team competition.
The two additional teams would be the Kings and a team from Argentina," said Hoskins, who is also the IRB's vice-chairman.
"I personally would love to see this 17-team competition where we all play each other, because less is actually more.
"But we must say 'Let's go for a 17-team competition and include Argentina'. That is my personal choice and I'm hoping that the franchises will be happy with that idea " that we mandate our two delegates in that way for the Sanzar meeting next week."
