House of Pained Supporters (May 5)

While in New Zealand we felt we’d be remiss if we missed attending a big-time rugby match in person. We’ve kept meaning to get to a game, but thus far it hasn’t been convenient, so we’ve kept putting it off. Unfortunately, the Super 14 (the professional rugby union league) regular season ended the first week of May and wouldn’t begin again until after we leave, so there was no more putting it off. We had to finagle an early departure from the café one Saturday afternoon, but that turned out to be no problem. Luckily for them as well as us, since if they’d said we couldn’t go, we probably would have had to just up and leave. Hey, you’ve got to take your trip objectives seriously…

Since Lawrence is just an hour’s drive from Dunedin and the Highlanders had a home game, the trip to Carisbrook Stadium was really pretty easy for us. Being from the States, when we got to the stadium, we were surprised to find it in the middle of a residential neighborhood, without its own parking lot. I can’t think of the last time I went to a pro sports game and found free off-street parking 10 minutes from the stadium. Try doing that at Fenway Park sometime.

Welcome to the House of Pain. Plenty of good seats still available.

When we got into the stadium, we saw that we hardly needed to buy tickets earlier in the week, as the stadium was half-full, if that, despite the fact that it was an absolutely brilliant fall night for rugby. The low attendance was attributable to the fact that it was the last game of a forgettable, disappointing season for the Highlanders. The Otago side finished lowest out of all the NZ teams in the league, but we were hoping they’d give the visiting Australian side, the Brumbies, a good match. Because of the low attendance and generally small size of the stadium, it kind of felt like a big minor-league game, not unlike the Hershey Bears, for example.

Enjoying a Speight's, Becky realizes her dire need for a haircut. We miss you, Marija!

Carisbrook bills itself as rugby’s “House of Pain”, but on this night, the only pain was for the home team and the few fans that turned out. Brumbies, fighting for a playoff berth, pasted the Highlanders 29-10, scoring four tries to Otago’s lone try. After 15 minutes, it became clear that the Highlanders weren’t going to be in it, so we settled into our Speight’s. The alcohol concession at Carisbrook basically consists of booths where they sell beer in cans from pallets. We were amazed that they sold it by the six-pack, as you’d never be able to buy a six-pack of cans at a game in the States. It seemed like the thing to do, so we grabbed one and took it back to our spot on the Terraces.

When at a Highlanders game, Speights is the beverage of choice. Preferably a six-pack.

Our tickets were for the standing section of the Terraces, and standing for the whole game reminded us of sitting in the student section at Penn State games; well, except that we had a six-pack of beer, Carisbrook was much smaller, and we weren’t jammed on top of one another. We did have the bad fortune of being in front of a big group of American students (we guess studying at Otago University), smoking and chattering on, ignoring the game to talk about how amazing NZ is and how wasted they were getting, so that was fun. We found we had to keep somewhat of a close eye on our beer, as there were kids running around who couldn’t have been more than 13 or so, scavenging unguarded beers. Tsk tsk…

Super 14 Rugby action!

All in all, despite the fact that the home team took quite a beating, we had a good time at the rugby match. We can check another to-do off our mental checklists, and if nothing else, we found it incredibly novel to be able to buy a six-pack at a pro sporting event. It was good to get to a game in person, and who knows, maybe we’ll be lucky and be able to catch another match (e.g. an international friendly) sometime later this year.

Bummed not to get on the "kiss cam"!