Watching NZ Rugby League in Style - From the Lounge!

The closest I ever got to rugby was playing tag rugby in Ireland. I was mediocre at it plus my team mates found it hard to pass the ball to me given my height. Whenever the taller ones did, it was almost always WAY over my head and I've had to leap up with a 50-50 chance to get the ball. So there were very few tries in my career plus one solidly embarrassing attempt that wasn't counted as it was a touchdown vs a valid try (hard lesson to learn in a tight game after a breath defying dash across the pitch and a celebratory jig over the try line). I guess I was more a "tagger" than a "tryer" you could say.

Our Invite

So when PIC rang me to ask if I wanted to see a real life Rugby game from the Vodafone Warriors' lounge, I said, "Hey sure, why not?".

One of my Kiwi friends was right, once you watch from the lounge you wouldn't want to go back to regular seating. As part of the package, we each got VIP passes that you wear around your neck and a complimentary pass that allowed you to park near the lounge entrance.

Attire was business casual, but wearing your team's jersey shirt was allowed. You walk into a well lit hallway and after one check to make sure that your badges were legit, sail through smiling and uber nice ushers who show you where your table is.

From our table

We were lucky in this instance that the table we were assigned to had the perfect location. We were a table away from the large windows that looked onto the pitch, the door to the outside seating, and two tables across the main stage. We were smack in the middle of the thing. It was on top of the action, close to the loo without the aromas, and close enough to the bar.

The table itself was a bit of a set up too. It was piled with freebies for each member of the group, with pens, company branded mints, Warriors pins/badges, Warriors ID necklaces, a mock TNT plane, a rugby ball signed by all members of the Warriors team, and sports magazines galore.

Our table & starter

To be completely honest, I had no idea who the Vodafone Warriors were or whether they were a good team or not. No clue about the Bulldogs either but from all the buzz around us, this was supposed to be a good match -- and it was! My mouth was left agape a couple of times that evening watching as men lifted, dragged, hurled their similarly chunky counterparts across the pitch to push the offence every inch back they could. You really have to marvel at the mettle of these men. Imagine all the concussions and rattled brain cells they have to go through -- its a wonder they're all still even the slightest bit coherent!

We never got to move out to our seats outside the glass windows that night. It was just too damn cold! I hardly knew the teams so I'm not really likely to freeze my ass off for them either. Most everyone else did though, and you gotta love the sea of red caps and orange inflated tubes waving in the air, fans with home made flags waving about and really getting into it. Doesn't really matter what sport you watch or how closely you follow it, watching live any day will make you a believer. You just get swept by the emotion.

As I watched the match pressed to the massive glass windows, I felt like a true fan. To think this is just rugby league, I can't even begin to think of what the excitement would be like if I got to see the All Blacks play live.

Teams getting ready on the pitch