ALL of Tauranga's one-legged chickens came home to roost yesterday, only to find the henhouse strewn with scrambled stadiums and half-boiled ideas.

The fifth-biggest city in New Zealand won't see any World Cup rugby games in 2011 because, quite simply, it doesn't deserve any.

Years of procrastination and cheap-thinking have left Western Bay without a plausible rugby stadium.

Instead, they've got a hastily converted, wind-ridden stockcar track (Baypark) and a central city venue that's been eagerly snapped up by the athletics community (Tauranga Domain).

Tauranga's provincial sister-city Rotorua, so often the downtrodden sibling, gets three World Cup games and the chance to showcase its many charms on the world stage, just because of the terrific International Stadium.

This isn't a slight on those behind Baypark. Bob Clarkson, to his credit, recognised the need for a multipurpose venue while he was building his speedway track, re-sketched the drawings to accommodate a rugby field, and he was indeed your uncle.

He was only filling a large void in the community, however, left vacant by the years of neglect invested in Tauranga Domain and the countless localbody politicians without the vision to provide a meaningful venue.

Then Clarkson sold the ground for a song, and those same politicians were left whistling in the dark, proud owners of a clay-flavoured lemon.

For a rugby ground, Baypark is a pretty good speedway track. You can't escape from the large clay oval nestled between spectators and rugby players - it's the proverbial elephant plonked down in the living room hogging the remote.

It doesn't matter how many seats are covered or the standard of the corporate boxes - it doesn't feel like a rugby stadium and perhaps it never will. What the city needs is a central, easily accessible, boutique ground with charm and character.

It doesn't need to be supersized - room for 15,000 punters would be more than enough.

Perhaps rugby should follow cricket's lead and nestle up next to the summer game at Blake Park, sharing resources with the magnificent new Bay Oval.

But do it soon, or you'll find the world has turned and left us out on our own, again.