Forget the game. The highlights of Sunday’s Kiwis vs Tonga test happened in the stands.
On Sunday, I bought a $20 ticket to the cheap seats in the upper corner of Eden Park to watch the Kiwis vs Tonga in the Pacific Championship. I’ll admit I’m naive to the world of international rugby league. Nothing against league, it just isn’t my code of choice. I knew the fans would be passionate; no one could miss the convoys of trucks flying red Tongan flags from their windows that dominated the streets of Auckland (and most other cities) for the past week. But I vastly underestimated just how intense it would be.
The official crowd count at Eden Park was 38,144, the largest rugby league crowd in New Zealand in a decade. It was short of a sellout for the national stadium, but it certainly didn’t feel that way. The noise was deafening: ear-piercing screams, huge choruses of songs and a sea of waving red flags.
I was sitting next to two mates who’ve watched as much sport as anyone I know: Andy McDonnell, the producer of Weekend Sport with Jason Pine on Newstalk ZB, and Lachlan Waugh, who produces Martin Devlin’s show for Mediaworks. Within the first five minutes of the game, Andy turned to me and said, “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in live sport”. Lachlan seemed genuinely concerned about the seismic strength of the stadium.
We speculated about the best live sports atmosphere New Zealand has produced in the last decade: The Black Ferns’ World Cup final victory over England at Eden Park in 2022. Grant Elliot’s six against South Africa in the 2015 Cricket World Cup semifinal. The first derby between Auckland FC and the Wellington Phoenix. For noise, energy and sheer crowd enthusiasm, this game cleared them all.
The crazy thing is, the rugby was pretty forgettable. Not that it was a bad game, but it was a round-robin match for a Pacific Cup which doesn’t even feature Australia. Nor was it ever particularly close. The Kiwis scored four unanswered tries in the first half, but when Isaiya Katoa kicked a huge penalty to cut the lead down to 24-2 the noise would convince you he’d tied it up.
An almost sold-out crowd at Eden Park.
When Tonga tackled a Kiwis player out of bounds the crowd reacted as if they’d scored a World Cup-winning try. There was a similar response after a 15-metre burst to bring the ball to halfway on a 4th tackle. And when a fullback caught an easy punt. Even a Tongan knock-on produced an eruption of cheers and flag-waving, for some reason. I pulled out my phone constantly to record the crowd reactions and gave the files names like ballkickedintotouch.mp4.
At one point, the announcer told the crowd to make some noise. They roared back, loud enough to make me flinch involuntarily. “I can’t hear you,” the MC said, lying. Nonetheless, the response reached new decibel levels. In the first half, the MC asked for cheers from Tongan fans first, then Kiwi fans. The noise for the Kiwis was louder. He repeated the call in the second, switching the order. Tonga, going second, was the clear winner. It seemed the crowd were just screaming for anything and everything.
Alongside more Tongan flags than I could count, the Cook Islands, Samoa and Niue each featured at least half a dozen times – plus, of course, the occasional silver fern. While the visual appearance of the crowd made it seem like an away game for the Kiwis, it felt more like there were two home teams. Every Kiwi try produced roaring celebrations and vigorous flag-waving. The first Tongan try, in the 48th minute, reached a new level of euphoria.
There were quite a few flags.
The sing-along to ‘Shalala Lala’ couldn’t have been bigger if the The Vengaboys were there in person. The halftime show with Savage barely required his presence; he was essentially the backup vocals for the crowd. The after-match entertainment, Josh Tatofi, was greeted like a brown Beatle.
As the 80-minute whistle blew, the entire crowd got on their feet in delirium. Again, this was not a close game. Tonga lost 40-14. But if you just tuned in, you’d assume they’d held onto a nail-biting lead. “I don’t know what we’re yelling about,” I screamed, loud enough to make my throat sore. No one on either side of me could make out a word I said. Fans danced on the streets of Kingsland until late. Flags flew and horns blared. Fireworks rang out over the city.
The usual conclusion from a sports column about raucous rugby league fans is to scold the rugby union establishment for the dour attitudes that dominate All Blacks fandom. And to some extent, that’s true. Rugby union needs to do a better job of remembering that live sport is fun. The inherent advantage of seeing a game live rather than on TV is that you get to be a part of the atmosphere, to be joined in celebration with thousands of other people, yelling about the same thing. But in reality, there’s nothing the All Blacks could do to manufacture this atmosphere.
Instead, my conclusion is this: we should all appreciate that something very special is happening in this particular sports fandom. If you have the opportunity to see Tonga play rugby league, take it. It doesn’t matter if you have any connection to Tonga or interest in the sport. If you’ve ever wanted to travel to experience the culture at a Premier League derby or a US college football game day, do this first. Because it’s genuinely one of the greatest live sports experiences on Earth.