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When the Roosters held out the Cowboys on Friday night history was re-written.
The Roosters and Rabbitohs, the game’s two oldest clubs, booked their first finals meeting since before World War 2 began.
The last time Easts and Souths met in finals football was in 1938, the Roosters emerging victorious 19-10.
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The Rabbitohs and Roosters traditionally draw massive crowds to their matches, with 30,000 attending a Thursday night game on a couple of weeks ago. The fact that these two sides haven’t met in finals in 76 years could add a big total on top of that.
This mixed in with the game being the grand final qualifier, they might not get the full house of 83,000, but they could easily get 65,000 or 70,000.
When the two sides met in Round 26, 2013 in the battle for the minor premiership they drew nearly 60,000.
Despite the heart-threatening prices, many thousands of Rabbitohs, Roosters and even neutral fans will get out to the game and possibly break the non-grand final record crowd.
As full as the ground will be on Friday night, it will be chock-a-block on Saturday night as well. Canterbury and Penrith, two massive underdogs, are also doing battle at ANZ Stadium for a place in the big dance.
Penrith and Canterbury brought fans in their thousands to their away finals in the last two weeks. The Panthers have the ‘home’ game and the week off. They have been one of the few clubs to continuously play for 80 minutes and are a reason to excite Panthers and neutral fans. They will bring a large crowd in.
ANZ Stadium is Canterbury’s home ground though, and many fans will be used to the journey from Belmore to Homebush Bay. This game could easily attract between 45,000 and 55,000.
The winners of these two games will make the grand final, but there may not be enough seats there for the fans of the two lucky teams.
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