Chris Rattue: Warriors at Eden Park? Be very afraid

A computer-generated image shows a beefed-up Eden Park which league and cricket would share with rugby teams. Photos / Greg Bowker, Getty Images

The Warriors were once a train wreck that somehow managed to stay on the rails which is at least better than Auckland's efforts in the field of sports stadiums.

The league team have survived most things, including a former chief executive who wanted to run a rugby team that would nick some of the club's star players. You couldn't dream up a better sporting "sleeping with the enemy" scenario if you tried.

Now, according to a Sunday newspaper, Eden Park is wooing the Warriors to make the famous old rugby and cricket ground their new home. Be afraid, be very afraid.

The Blues and Auckland rugby chief executive Andy Dalton was quoted in the Sunday Star-Times as saying "there's every chance" the Warriors will make Eden Park their permanent home.

This story is enough to make you weep. Auckland fires the diggers up first and puts its brain into gear later.

Once again, the city's planning is shown up to be inept because we should have known about the possibility of the Warriors moving to Eden Park during the debate on the ground's future and revamp. We are being prevented from making informed decisions.

Had Auckland got the order of events right, the city might have envisaged a dual rugby and league ground built for the purpose, helped cricket to find a smaller, modern facility elsewhere and given the citizens a stadium situation they deserved.

Instead, after rebuilding Eden Park so it is still not wholly suitable for either rugby or cricket, we find there might have been a way to make it a purpose-built football home.

Rugby and league are, after all, the sports that draw the regular crowds. The Super 14 might yet be expanded, but big cricket games are few and far between. A world-class football venue should be the overwhelming priority.

There was an unsupported statement in yesterday's story that "unprofitable" Mt Smart Stadium, the scene of Beckhamgate and owned by the Auckland Regional Council, would be scrapped as the new Auckland super city merged its resources. The story focused on ground rights issues and money.

What about the viewing experience and atmosphere though, issues that should be paramount in these discussions?

Eden Park is marginal as a decent rugby ground and unsuited to league. Because it will remain a cricket ground - and not a very good one - its circular playing area pushes football spectators away from the sidelines.

Visually, rugby union survives (just) at Eden Park because it works as a broad brush game. But in league, you want to get as close as possible to the dots. That's why league works so well on television, because the action is confined to small areas and ballwork and skills are always visible to be caught by the camera.

Dalton said: "It makes sense to have just the one venue in the city."

Well, no it doesn't actually, not when the one venue is flawed.

What Auckland is trying to do now is make the best of an unholy stadium mess, but the Warriors should think very carefully indeed before they take the Eden Park plunge.

League is a gladiatorial game. It works best in the claustrophobic atmospheres of proper football stadiums.

The Warriors' current home, Mt Smart Stadium, is not perfect. But Mt Smart is still better as a league venue than Eden Park. It drums up a good atmosphere and works well on television. The Warriors have established an identity there.

The numbers don't add up for the Warriors at Eden Park.

The ground's rugby capacity has been around 45,000 but will rise towards 60,000 under the revamp. The Warriors drag in about 20,000 spectators on their good days, but the attendances rely heavily on the team's form and I don't believe Eden Park would encourage new viewers.

Numbers have slumped below 10,000 when they have had a run of bad results and the down times are inevitable under the NRL's salary cap system. Or put it this way - the salary cap means there will never be an era in which the Warriors are so consistently dominant that they would make more than a decent scratch in Eden Park's new capacity.

The Sydney Football Stadium has had a capacity similar to Eden Park's 45,000 but the SFS is built for the football codes, with the stands parallel to the sidelines. And even the SFS is a lonely place during low-attendance matches, when it also provides a poor atmosphere for television viewers.

If the Warriors want to continue selling their sport as the highly charged alternative to rugby, which is stumbling in Auckland, then it should be very wary of Eden Park.

Can you imagine the drab, soulless atmosphere at Eden Park, should the day arrive when the ground holds say 55,000 people and there are just 8000 there to watch the Warriors play Penrith?

There is also talk of shifting playoff games, as early as this year, to Eden Park in the name of making more money. Once again, I would urge caution. The most important part of a playoff game is winning it. The best thing that could happen to league in this country is for the Warriors to win the NRL. To leave Mt Smart for Eden Park would surrender the full value of home advantage in the playoffs.

The Warriors are familiar with Mt Smart and a packed and enthusiastic audience close to the touchlines should give them an enormous playoff lift. Their pre-match routines should be protected.

The Warriors' director of football, John Hart, was indirectly quoted in the story as saying any decision on the club's future home was a long way off.

Hopefully, the Warriors will come to their senses in that time and fight for a better home than Eden Park. Moving there sounds very grand, but it could derail a lot of their good work of late.