My Experience Attending My First NRL Game

"I am more Australian than you, this is my second rugby game", exclaimed an English member of our company who works in the UK office. Most people I work with are in disbelief, "Is this really your first NRL game? You're in for a treat"

I arrive with no allegiances, although my city is Brisbane and it's a home team game: Brisbane Broncos vs Melbourne Storm.

The odds are already in Melbourne's favour, the Broncos have lost their last five games. I'm not a statistics guy, bit five games in a row is a big deal. Some die-hards tell me it's because of injuries the team have had. Or maybe they're just in denial.

The smell of XXXX Gold perfume is in the air. You won't find craft beer here and while XXXX is usually reserved for bogan bucks parties and people with no taste buds, it's really the only beer choice here.

Naturally, I make a line for the bar. It's $8.50 for a shitty beer literally manufactured up the road at the Castlemaine Brewery. Why is a beer in a plastic cup literally transported 350 meters from the brewery up the road so expensive? Captive audience.

A work colleague tells me, "These games are a lot more fun if you get cut first" I think cut is slang for tipsy, and not literally saying you need to get cut with a sharp object to enjoy the game. Fortunately, nobody tried cutting me.

We head to our designated rows in the lower end of the stadium. These seats are pretty close to the field, I'm petrified of heights so thankfully it wasn't in the nosebleed section.

Then someone in a Melbourne Storm Jersey spills some of their beer on me. And just like that, I am baptised in the holy water from the bogan gods themselves. I have just become one of the audience, and now I hate Melbourne Storm. If only for spilling beer on me.

Arriving impartial and becoming a Bronco's fan all in the blink of an eye as the weak gold liquid soaks into my skin and shirt. I feel the spirit of Queensland coursing its way through my veins, go Bronco's (I guess).

Before the game begins, we are treated to some pre-game entertainment. Simply The Best blasts over the stadium speakers, a cliche song that undoubtedly earns millions yearly in royalties from being played at sporting events. Once again, I defer to the five losses in a row record (maybe not the best after all).

And now we are treated to a mascot waving and doing backflips. Pretty entertaining, but the audience isn't really getting into it. The kids seem to love it, but I see a kid reading a Dr Seuss book, so maybe not every kid is enjoying this.

Oh, look... The Bronco's mascot "Buck" as a lady draped in Bronco's propaganda rides a Bronco holding a flag, doing laps around the stadium. The audience is cheering, this is exciting. Have I come to a horse show or a football game?

Now they start calling out the names and numbers of the players as they appear on the screen. The cheering is deafening, for some players more than others. Then as the numbers go up, the cheering and enthusiasm begins to dwindle.

Now fireworks are being shot into the air, there are massive flame cannons on the side of the field and although they're quite a few metres away from me, every time they blast a stream of gas-fed fire into the sky I feel the heat radiating off of them. I see people literally sitting beneath these things, the heat was seriously hot over there.

The audience isn't really loving the fireworks, this is the least enthusiastic fireworks show I have ever been too. The players start pouring out onto the field, first the Broncos (complete with cheerleaders and their cavalry) and then Melbourne Storm to a choir of boos from the audience.

The game kicks off soon after. The Broncos score a try within the first ten minutes, I hear a fan in the audience tell his wife, "We've got a chance to win this one, they just scored a try" - and then the game plays on, Melbourne Storm starts to dominate the field, scoring tries and widening the scoreboard.

The audience is fairly quiet. Considering there are over 32,000 people in attendance, it is pretty quiet. There are a few Melbourne fans in attendance, they start cheering, "Let's go Melbourne" and other chants, I hear the occasional "sucks" being thrown in after Melbourne from a few disgruntled Bronco's fans.

I am sitting near the Bronco's try line, and every time they score a try the flame cannons are fired. During the long abscences where the Bronco's cannot score a try, the audience begins to shiver. It starts to get cold at times, and just when you have given up all hope, the Bronco's would score a try and the flame cannons would warm everyone up again.

Before we know it, it's half-time and I head for the bathroom. The lines are long, I have never witnessed a line for a men's toilet before, another first for me tonight.

I head back for the half-time entertainment, and it's weird. A guy is blindfolded on the field and has to roll a massive blue football with "help" written on it through the goal posts down one end and win $1,000. The audience seems to be into it, oddly enough, more into it than the game so far.

He does it and the audience cheers, he just won $1,000. Exciting.

The audience is now being treated to a bunch of sponsor advertisements being shown on the big screens. One of which is a McDonald's advertisement with the text, "If the Bronco's score 19 points or more, you can claim a free Bronco's burger from McDonald's" - this really made me laugh, because the audience started roaring and cheering (almost deafening), turns out everyone really loves a free burger.

Where was this excitement the first half of the game? The audience was so timid and quiet, I could actually have conversations with other people without shouting and hear them when they responded. This isn't the kind of deafening excitement I was promised.

The entertainment is still going. Now, the words "Crowd Karaoke" come up on the screen. These are the words that no sober person wants to see or hear, karaoke. I contemplate calling it a night right then and there, but part of me wants to experience what this is like. I don't know about you, but I can't ever recall having a pleasant karaoke experience.

And can you guess what the song of choice was for tonight's karaoke? YMCA by The Village People.

Nobody in the audience near me is singing or actioning the YMCA symbols (fortunately), up on the screen the camera guy is panning between different members of the audience miming the words to the song. A guy covered head to toe in Bronco's propaganda is seen putting his beer down and then jumping about miming the words and doing the symbols, looks like someone has had a few too many XXXX golds.

The camera then pans to a guy with a microphone on the field (I think an MC or something) and a guy wearing a headset like an off-field ref and the guy is dancing around and then tries kissing the guy in the headset and taps him on the bum a couple of times. Haha, hilarious.

How can anyone possibly top crowd karaoke?

Now we are being treated to a cheerleader performance from the Bronco's cheerleaders, a bunch of young women dancing around with pom-poms to the tune of Christina Aguilera's song, "Aint No Other Man" - it looks high-intensity, but it's nothing you haven't seen at any other sporting event. There are a few "woo's" from the audience and wolf whistling, I hear someone yell out, "Woo, for casual sexism"

After the song is finished, the game starts pretty much right after. The game is starting to get interesting, and the Bronco's look like they're trying now. Sadly Melbourne Storm is better than ever and are dominating the Bronco's, it's the Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather fight all over again.

And then it happens, a creepy looking mascot starts walking around the perimeter of the stadium. I couldn't make out what it was at first, is it an Oompa Loompa? Is it a demonic being sent from the underworld demanding sacrifice? I don't know, but it starts getting closer to my side of the field.

A lady is holding up a sign walking beside him and it says, "#ALFIESTATUE" with a URL going to a petition: https://www.alfiestatue.com.au/ - turns out it's a petition to get Alfie Langer a bronze statue at Suncorp Stadium. I get it, this creature is meant to be a bronze representation of Alfie Langer. If this is the final design, I am against the idea. This is terrifying.

Be the judge for yourself, does this terrify you? This looks like the creature you see before you die in a bad B-grade horror film.

Even more weird is he is taking forever to move around the field, taking time to take odd pauses and do weird things like face the audience and just intently stare for a few minutes. Terrifying.

Eventually, demonic Alfie disappears and the Bronco's cheerleader girls make their way around the field after being on the other side for most of the game. Shaking their pom-poms and smiling, stopping to take photos with members of the crowd.

I see a man two rows in front of me get out his phone and take a photo, and his wife slaps his arm and look displeased. I found it entertaining, I am not sure if anyone else saw the interaction, but I am glad that I did.

The game continues on and eventually finishes. Melbourne Storm smashed the Bronco's, but the crowd is happy because they get a free burger from McDonald's because the Bronco's somehow managed to score more than 19 points tonight.

Local McDonald's stores are alerted to get an extra mop and bucket out, as drunk fans roll in and collect their free burgers.

I somewhat enjoyed my first NRL game, it wasn't what I expected. I was disappointed that the audience wasn't as rowdy as I would have liked, but the weird things I saw were amusing.