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Before I start, I need to preface this with the fact that I am a rugby league fan but I still enjoy union.
I believe there is a place in this world for both and they can be supported by the same bunch of people.
If you disagree, please click away and enjoy another article because I don’t want the comments section turning into a league versus union argument.
I want it to be a discussion about why people didn’t turn out for the Four Nations and what can be done to change this lack of support in a country that struggles to embrace live sport outside of the All Blacks.
On Saturday night in Wellington I grabbed a couple of my friends who are union supporters and my girlfriend and took them along to the Kiwis versus Kangaroos game because I knew they would enjoy it.
Tickets were a steal at $25 for seats only a few rows back from the action. When I got there I was surprised and disappointed to see so many empty yellow seats. I had read there were about 22,000 pre-sales and it was quite a nice Wellington night so I thought more fans would roll up and get tickets on the gate.
Some media outlets are to blame for this poor showing as they were playing the game down before it kicked off. They had been saying it was a lacklustre tournament missing big names and it was rugby league overload after a long NRL season, but I beg to differ.
The best players in the game were on the park – Greg Inglis, Cooper Cronk, Cameron Smith, Shaun Johnson, Kieran Foran and Manu Vatuvei. The list goes on.
The final crowd numbers came in at a little more than 25,000. Very disappointing in New Zealand’s second biggest city where the stadium is close, it was a warm night and you have your national team with a realistic chance at upsetting the world champions.
Take into consideration that the Super Rugby Final had 62,000 attend and that was being played in Sydney where rugby union is an afterthought in the sporting world. The recent All Blacks match at Twickenham had 82,000 in a stadium that’s 40 minutes on the train from central London and all Wellington could muster up was 25,000 on a night where there was nothing else on. No excuses really!
Why do people in this country see it fit to only support one sport? These other national teams of ours – the Kiwis, Warriors and Black Caps – are forever getting knocked back down because they ‘under perform’ and the All Blacks are drawing record crowds.
What more do the Kiwis need to do to get our love? They’re the best team in the world right now at a time that the All Blacks aren’t playing great rugby. It’s the perfect recipe for a sell-out Westpac Stadium but sadly New Zealand sports fans would rather sit at home than see a national team make history in what was a top quality game of football.
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