Chris Rattue: One star shines in our dinosaur park

Gareth Anscombe. Photo / Getty Images

One is a freshly built dinosaur we are stuck with. Tragically. The other is the brightest unheralded prospect in Auckland rugby since who knows when.

The bad news is Eden Park.

The great news is first five-eighths Gareth Anscombe.

As Anscombe put the combined might of Nelson Bays and Marlborough to the sword on Sunday, even an ITM Cup romp could still reveal the warm prospect of a player with a genuine rugby brain emerging from the long cold winter that has become Auckland/Blues rugby.

The 19-year-old has been displaying a happy knack of turning up in all the right places, doing the right things at the right time, and with guile and pace when needed.

This is not a Dan Carter-type certainty, to be fair, but we can live in joyous hope if Anscombe gets his fair chance.

His father, the Auckland coach Mark Anscombe, can't look at his son like any other player - as he puts it - and has left the No 10 selection to his assistant Andrew Strawbridge.

The advisability of this is open to question because as a head coach, you get paid to make the tough decisions and in the end, the buck will stop there, son or no son. A nice sentiment from a dad, though.

Gareth has made the decision easy for Auckland. However, Pat Lam, the Blues coach, will soon face a quandary.

The Blues ended up with Stephen Brett, the conscript from Canterbury. The irony is that Brett might be the first Canterbury pivot who plays like an erratic Aucklander, while Gareth Anscombe plays like a well-schooled Cantabrian.

Anscombe is certainly a bolt out of the blue - he doesn't even have a profile on the Auckland Rugby website yet - but that shouldn't stop a rapid rise.

Anscombe snr may have concerns about any fast-tracking of his son into the Super competition, but the greater worry is the type of environment he is fast-tracked into at the Blues.

Gareth Anscombe looks more than ready for careful promotion, but he will need the strength to impose his type of thinking on the Blues rather than the other way around. That's the real problem.

He looks a terrific young prospect who plays in a position where he can, hopefully, set a precise and ruthless tone for the Blues. A Foxy on Wheels if you like. Wish Anscombe enormous luck, because he'll need it with that mob.

Anscombe would have warmed the heart of any Auckland fan on Sunday, which is more than can be said for Eden Park. What a mess.

If anyone tries to tell you that the city has a brilliant newish stadium, prescribe a nice cup of tea and a long lie-down.

Auckland stuffed this one up. Big time.

Rugby (and league) will become increasingly dominant and the 2011 World Cup handed Auckland - and New Zealand - the best chance to build a dedicated national football stadium, with the grandstands shaped close and high above the playing arena. (This could also have loosened Wellington's grip on the All Whites).

Auckland may never get another chance. Instead, the brainless trust came up with a half-cocked solution which is stuck in concrete. Tonnes and tonnes of the stuff.

How on Earth could the national sport be blighted by one-day cricket requirements.

Test cricket hasn't been played in Auckland for five years, an extraordinary situation that has barely raised a ripple of protest, which tells you where cricket is at.

(Test cricket will return to Eden Park in 2013 but only on the rebuilt No 2 ground).

The itinerary for Pakistan's upcoming 11-game tour against the Black Caps tells this story. This duel between the No Balls and the No Ballers involves just two short-form games at Eden Park. Yet rugby has been screwed in the name of this.

Eden Park is a monument to failed public policy, a sort of white elephant from birth thanks to a weak political leadership.

Our city lacks leaders with strength and vision, people who can break free of political quicksand and mindless, endless, silent poll-led manoeuvring.

A stunning new rugby stadium on the waterfront would have revitalised the city, enabling the true modern sporting experience for spectators in the only major sports with serious growth potential in the 21st century.

The players also deserved better, the chance to operate in a cauldron.

The alternative was to make Eden Park No 1 a football ground, and find a new home for cricket.

There may come a time when cricket survivalists are left to battle away at Cornwall Park next to those sword-wielding blokes who think they are knights from the round table. The football codes will still be left with a round ground.

Anyone who has been in a proper football stadium, in countries like Australia or South Africa, will know the extent of this crime.

The stadium moment has gone. What a crying shame.