Henry Cooper used the episode in his argument for the transfer of the Mt Eden Prison quarries to Auckland Grammar for the creation of new sports fields for that school. He pointed out that the brewery site would have been very suitable for Grammar and that Grammar had been beaten to it by a "private school". The context of this was that the new Auckland Southern Motorway development was projected to take the main Grammar rugby field which lay between the two schools. Although St Peter's was to be less affected, Liston supported Auckland Grammar in its opposition to the motorway and the projected route. Auckland Grammar argued that the motorway was going to adversely affect "two great schools" and should either be abandoned or re-routed. However, one of Grammar's suggested alternative routes was to be "further down" Mountain Road, which would have taken the motorway either through St Peter's College or through the Catholic netball courts which were used by the college and are now part of it as the site of the sports complex. Either of these proposed alternative routes would also have taken out the newly acquired and developed rugby field.