KEY POINTS:
Go to a game in Cardiff and you immediately know New Zealand is making a huge mistake with Eden Park. Talk about missed opportunities.
Now let's be honest about this, Cardiff is a city in need of redeeming features. It doesn't have the architectural majesty of Edinburgh or the literary history of Dublin. Edinburgh has the splendour of the New Town, a world heritage site. Cardiff has the so-called chip alley, a boulevard of fried food delights.
Dublin has built a state of the art shrine to honour Guinness, the finest drink ever made. Cardiff has a skanky old brewery pumping out gallons of tainted firewater called Brains. Wales is the poor Celtic relation and Cardiff is the proof.
But what it does have is a magnificent citadel to play rugby. Maybe even the best rugby stadium in the world. Not only that, the good people of Cardiff, or rather the slightly downtrodden people of Cardiff who perhaps need to rethink the shell-suit with gelled forward hair look, have built a stadium that puts New Zealand to shame.
It is possible to be in the centre of Cardiff and not even know that lurking round the next corner is this 74,000 stadium. The spectator experience inside the stadium is as good as you will ever get.
It is tight to the pitch. Seats are easy to find, it's easy to get in and get out and the views from all 74,000 seats are good. There are two giant big screens at either end and it's hard to think how they could possibly have made it any better.
The real magic of the stadium, though, is its location. That's where the experience between watching a game in Auckland and watching one in Cardiff becomes markedly different.
In Cardiff, you can use all the facilities of the city centre prior to the game. You can lunch up to about 30 minutes before kick off and then stroll to the stadium. After the game, you just stroll out and find another boozer right there in front of you.
It is low stress. You don't have to think about parking, about timing, about where to get something to eat, about how to get home. Magic.
And that's why New Zealand has missed a trick by shying away from the option of building a new stadium in the centre of Auckland. It didn't necessarily need to be on the waterfront. Could have been at Carlaw Park, or Victoria Park. Anywhere but the residential suburb of Kingsland/Sandringham/Mount Eden (you can make your own mind up about where it is).
Millennium Stadium will last forever. The same arguments about Eden Park will rage the day after the World Cup final.
Cardiff has a legacy. Auckland has a problem.
Gregor Paul
The All Blacks line up for the national anthems during the test against Wales at Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. Photo / Getty Images
