The crocodile tears, court injunctions, media beat-ups and sheer bickering over the Auckland Waterfront Stadium are simply unbearable. Something needs to be done.

Clearly, there will never be an agreement to build the stadium because it's not crass enough and people worry about the money even though it's not actually that much, despite the wild $1.6 billion guesstimate from Burqa Bob the Builder in Tauranga.

You could argue that it's embarrassing that there's no world-class stadium to host the RWC in Auckland (or any other sport for that matter) and it is. Then again, Auckland likes that kind of embarrassment. That's why the public transport here sucks and we don't even have a motorway to the airport for instance.

It does bother me though that nobody's hit upon the obvious solution for the Gordian Knot that is the stadium: use technology, and make it virtual.

That's right, virtual. It could be hosted in Second Life or if Auckland put a little bit of effort into it, a similar virtual world developed locally. The entire country could then join in and design the Virtual All Blacks and best of all, it wouldn't all have to go through Sky either.

There'd be plenty of excitement too, when say the French decide to hack the VABs because that's the only way they'll ever win. Betting on the games would be easy too and there'd always be a seat at the stadium for you.

It's not as crazy as it seems eh?