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Auckland Blues To Infinity and Beyond

waiopehu oldboy

George Smith (75)
Multiple Bleus, incl Sotutu, shown on TV1 news sipping tea from dainty cups & eating a variety of cakes with their respective mummys today. Everyone say "oh what lovely sons they must be". Yeaaah...
 

zer0

John Thornett (49)
Brumbies: speedbumps
Reds: lightweights
Rebels: pantywaists
Hurricanes: space cadets

wizard-harry.gif
 

waiopehu oldboy

George Smith (75)
Inevitably there's now a fourth consortium wanting to spend other people's money on a new Auckland stadium:

"A stadium and entertainment precinct at Wynyard Point, encompassing a main 55,000-seat stadium, an indoor arena and an outdoor amphitheatre to view harbour events like SailGP, is the fourth proposal that will be voted on next month."



Haven't seen even a ballpark budget but I'm guessing it sits somewhere between Eden Park 2.1 (~$850 Mn) & the bonkers below sea level one (~2.2 Bn according to one report I've read).
 

KiwiM

Arch Winning (36)
I presume at best Beauden might be able to be on the bench for the remaining regular season games (and not playoffs) if Blues are short given injuries to Perofeta, Zarn and apparently Cashmore (similar to John Afoa playing for Crusaders last year) but this whole thing gives me nightmares of Finlay Christie coming back at 9 and Beauden back at 10 ruining all the Blues good work - fitting this comes before the Crusaders game in Christchurch where the Blues got destroyed in last year's semi final with... you guessed it... Christie at 9 and Beauden at 10.

The Blues are poised to make a controversial move to bring All Blacks star Beauden Barrett into their squad for the rest of the 2024 Super Rugby Pacific season.

With the 32-year-old, 123-test international back from his sabbatical in Japan with Toyota Verblitz, and now training with the Auckland club as he eyes the upcoming test season, the Blues have confirmed they have started the wheels turning on an application to add him to their squad for the rest of the campaign.

 

waiopehu oldboy

George Smith (75)
And then there were two...

"Eden Park and Quay Park go through to next stage to become New Zealand's national stadium"

Apparently Quay Park is "downtown" but I haven't a clue where, no doubt @zer0 does.


As much fun as calling it the Paddling Pool would've been I'm glad they killed off the "literally in the harbour" option: ince they're tagging it a National Stadium (& since it's in Auckland) I'm assuming the whole country will be paying for it.
 

zer0

John Thornett (49)
Quay Park is the area around whatever they call Vector Arena these days. It's on the periphery of the city centre atm but is a much better location than Eden Park because it's just a short flat walk to down Quay Street to Britomart (the main train station whose capacity is about to explode when the City Rail Link is complete) and the rest of downtown. The Britomart end of Quay Street - and Britomart in general - already has plenty of bars and eateries around and Commercial Bay (latest fancy shopping + dining destination) is across the square from the train station.

Eden Park, on the other hand, were diabolical to get to and from, and is surrounded by absolute wounder residents who seem to think the entire city should shutdown at 6PM because that's when they doze off to sleep. The only thing Eden Park has going for it is history and that's not enough against the actual benefits of a central city destination stadium.

The waterfront ones, especially the sunken one, were both daft.

tldr: build city centre stadium because it has better transit connections, surrounding hospitality, and isn't trying to be both a cricket and rugby stadium.
 
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waiopehu oldboy

George Smith (75)
I've sworn never to go to Eden Park again (for many of the reasons outlined by @zer0) but I'd probably go to Quay Park, sounds like it'd have a similar vibe to Caxton St & Suncorp.
 
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