A couple of years ago, I took my son to Eden Park to watch an All Blacks v Australia Bledisloe Cup test and we used the train to return to the city after the match. It broke down and we were forced, after a half-hour wait inside a crowded carriage, to get off and walk from Newmarket into the city. It was Third World then and, even after all this planning, it's still the same. How embarrassing.
What is also embarrassing is Tauranga not only having no games but also, for opening night, having absolutely no central fan zone. You could just about have fired a shotgun down The Strand and not hit anyone.
Maybe the local rugby fans were on the waterfront in Auckland.
I must admit, a week after the RWC has kicked off, there is something happening on The Strand carpark.
It is bad enough that the fifth largest city in New Zealand does not have a ground that is even close to World Cup standards, and it's hard watching centres like Invercargill, New Plymouth and Whangarei hosting games.
I guess we only have ourselves to blame. Thanks to Bob Clarkson we have a fantastic facility in Baypark ... as a speedway. Bob built Baypark solely as a speedway track and it was only after it was completed that the BOP Rugby Union decided maybe we could use the infield as a rugby ground and play a few Steamers games there. That's great but it's certainly not the best rugby ground around. The main complaint I hear is that, as a spectator, you are too far away from the action.
Obviously it's fine for the visiting teams like Russia and Fiji to use it as a training ground and it's great to have those teams in town, although you really wouldn't know they were here.
There were a lot of Facebook comments during this past week over Tauranga's lack of any games and one comment caught my eye.
It referred to the Dunedin council having the intestinal fortitude to build an amazing stadium, while the Tauranga council showed a complete lack of vision in having us excluded from the biggest showcase ever to enter our shores.
It goes on to encourage people to petition the council for a multi-purpose sports stadium that we can all be proud of.
One thing we must remember, we are a Pacific island of just over four million people.
We don't need a country full of multi-purpose stadiums. Forty plus million dollars have just been invested here in a fantastic indoor facility that is the Baypark TECT Arena and, after just a couple of weeks of being opened, it has hosted many thousands of people for various events. Tonight, the main arena will be full with thousands watching the Breakers playing the Wollongong Hawks, while next door in the exhibition space the His and Her Expo is happening.
In my opinion, we are better off focusing on regional facilities rather than every centre competing against one another. Rotorua has a great rugby ground so let's make that the home of Bay rugby, with Tauranga becoming the home of regional and international indoor sport.
Sparc this week confirmed Waikato as the new centre for cycling in New Zealand.
If we are to spend some money on a sports centre in the Bay, let's take a look at the Blake Park cricket oval.
A lot of money has already gone into building a great wicket and outfield - but where is the pavilion? It's been two or three years now that we have had the ground and hosted a couple of Twenty/20 games using very temporary structures. Is it not about time a state-of-the-art pavilion graced the ground?
Let's start getting our ducks in a row, Tauranga, and showing the rest of the country what we can do.
