Not at all convinced that crunching makes sense just in order to qualify. But everyone makes their own choices. I'd say Zeus has done the right thing here in just normalling, we needed enthusiasm in the next round. Obviously New Zealand's ambition was just to qualify, and that's what they've done.
I prefer to be a bit more ambitious and so it seems does Zeus. Well done for a great season, it was a really difficult draw, and two crucial defeats came against teams willing to ignore the long term.