I don’t think anyone said that the AB’s were irrelevant but instead said that the domestic NPC&super rugby competitions were struggling and fast losing appeal.
Super Rugby all but killed off NPC when it was introduced, however NPC went through a bit more of a mini resurgence once the Talent was better dispersed and the smaller non Super rugby based provinces.
Thing is 14 clubs can’t be financially viable in a country as small as NZ, most of those teams represent areas around 100k-300k populations.
League in NZ suffers from a top down problem where the interest in the Warriors is immense but below that is a chasm to the next level which at present makes that development step in Aus systems essential.
Getting the grass roots growing will help capture the locals imagination(it’s non existent in the majority of the countries school sports programs) but the Top level of the game in the Warriors often directly competes with the NZRLs interests and little if any money trickles into the local game, whereas union has the benefit of the All Blacks money essentially funding the entire systems down to grass roots- it’s very hard for the NZRL to compete with that at present.