I posted this in another thread.
I too was disappointed in the crowd.
I was in the "Eels Supporters" section.
I was in bay 116 and I was told to shup up and sit down a few times when I was cheering the boys on. Both in the first and seconded halves.
I was trying to get everyone pumped and cheering and clapping when we made good tackles and small brakes. But everyone around me was very quite.
Cheering the boys on when things are down is the way to lift them to bring them home. Not waiting for them to spark themselves, they play for us the fans, we need to lift them.
We need to do better next year or it will all before nothing.
Coops
The problem in finals and especially the Grand Final are the neutrals and the fairweather / finals fans. In the regular season the season ticket holders are grouped roughtly together in pockets and sit together, and the non-season ticket holders sit in the areas they know the atmosphere is good.
Yesterday and even against the Dogs in parts, there was not enough 'critical mass' to get chants going in parts of the ground - against the Dogs there were areas where big families / groups of friends had purchsed 30 tickets. Every man and his dog from the family/ social group was there, including a bunch of neutrals or people or half hearted Eels fans.
The GF was a smattering of fans from all over the place, and the hardcore fans were too spread out or not in enough numbers to get a good chant going. It is a shame, but happens every year.
Still - when we scored tries and when the Eels were attacking the line, the noise and atmosphere was incredible.