It's been about 7 years since I've been to an NRL game between teams I didn't have an interest in. In that instance it was a game between the Roosters and the Rabbitohs. My eight year old brother had decided he would support the Roosers because they were "The Sydney team". He was also looking forward to seeing our Grandfathers team, The Rabbitohs, fall to his newly adopted "Sydney" Roosters. That game was at the Sydney Football Stadium, known as Aussie Stadium at the time. The game time experience for an NRL game at the football stadium was always the same. Unless you were part of a particular teams dedicated supporter group you wouldn't be interacting with anyone outside of your own group and nothing would be taking place other than the game. At the end of the game everyone would gather their things and proceed, as directed, to the nearest exit before disappearing into the evening.
Brookvale is different. Here you have the possibility of having supporters turn up after getting off the couch. The teams leagues club is less than 300 metres away. The entire ground isn't full of seats. There is room around the side for bored spectators to do their own thing. This is why rugby league gets the dedicated supporters who are prepared to give everything to get to the next home game. As we stood at the back of the hill in the north-east corner, watching Brett Stewart go over for a try, we began speculating amongst ourselves about why he had pulled up just before scoring. Was it an injury? Did he not realise a chasing player was so close? "He did it before his last try" a nearby spectator added. "He's done for the day". It's hard to imagine having this conversation at Homebush or the football stadium. It's almost like the difference between that swanky new bar and your local pub. It's a completely different atmosphere.
As Manly started scoring try-after-try our attention wandered over to a group of kids wrestling with each other just below the embankment we were standing on. One kid, who was about half a foot shorter, and a fair bit lighter than the other kids was going hard. He'd crash tackle the others into the ground before ferociously trying to drive them deeper into the mud around them. A consensus seemed to arise throughout our area that Parra should sign this guy. The greatest amount of courage and passion we saw that day wasn't on the field but in some young blokes effort to show his size didn't matter.
The game itself wasn't that great. Most of the hardcore spectators were bored by the time Manly went over early in the second half to send the margin to over fourty points. The Eels bewildered everyone in the second half by playing good enough football to win the half and significantly decrease the margin. Final score was: Manly 40 Parramatta 24. This was the second time I've been to Brookie, but it is definitely far better than either the football stadium or Homebush. It was at these suburban grounds that the Dads who take their kids to the game first attended a game of rugby league, and it will be these grounds that todays kids will want to take their children to in the future.
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