Rugby Union game

Tonight I went to Central Station around 7 to catch a bus to Aussie Stadium for the rugby game. I had to go for my Australian Sports Culture class, but I did want to see some Aussie rugby anyway so it worked out rather well. The bus came at 7:20 and I was dropped off at 7:40, but I missed my stop because I couldn’t see the stadium and didn’t know it was the right stop. So I walked back about 20 minutes and got to a big intersection with no idea which way to go. Thank God I chose one that eventually led to the stadium.

I missed the first 5 minutes or so, but no big deal. There were about 25,000 in attendance, lots of fans dressed in blue for the NSW Waratahs. I had to sit with a bunch of the obnoxious Americans in my class. Our seats were on one end of the field, about 7 rows back… nice. I don’t really understand rugby at all, but I like when they throw the ball in and a few teammates lift one guy up to catch it. Kinda neat. And they do a weird huddle/head butt thing between plays too. The game only lasted 2 hours, which was just enough time to soak it all in and be sufficiently confused by the game. Fans can get pretty into it, but there’s no extreme heckling like what I’m used to hearing at Yankee Stadium. Good stuff.

Waratahs won, 26-3. And after the game, some of the players go out onto the field and throw mini-rugby balls into the crowd. They also make sure to shake hands with people in the stands afterwards. So cute, right? I didn’t catch any though because I was surrounded by a bunch of little kids who were going crazy over it. And go figure they ran buses after the game that went directly from right outside the stadium [as opposed to 10 minutes away with no sight of the stadium] to the city, for FREE. If only I’d caught one of those from Central to the game!