K
Kipper
Guest
We had home ground advantage, but if there was a marketing plan it failed. Wellington is no place for a league test - the locals don't know the game and there was no concerted cheering. The Kiwi side deserved a full stadium. - PeterJessop, The New ZealandHerald. If you ask me, Jessop's saida pretty dumb thing to say on at least three counts. Firstly,theperformance from the Kiwis was hardly one worth cheering, outside of the first 10 minutes when the the "Ki-wi! Ki-wi!..." chant got going and the atmosphere waspretty good. Secondly, taking the sort of attitude that Jessophas is a bit like the religious missionaries ofthe past saying "why sailoverseas? No one over there knows how to be proper Christians....".It typifies the sort of insular crap thatcould eventuallydrive league into worldwide extinction. Thirdly,where wouldhe prefertests to be played? Ericcson?! I admit that outside of Wainui, the Hutt and Porirua, league isn't exactly one of Wellington's main sporting passions. Despite this, and the factit's less than half the size of Auckland, therehave beenaround 27,000 at the Stadium for the two league matches that have been held there so far. That's 7,000 better than the number at Ericcson for the '99 tri-series final, and 15,000 more than the average Warriors' homecrowd in this the club's brightest ever year. Of coursenumbers don't tell you everything, but you can't really blamethe average Wellingtonian sports fanfor being a little apprehensive aboutgetting right in behind theKiwis or the Warriors at the moment. The Kiwis have now had a hat-trick of thrashings from the Aussies. Meanwhile, the up-and-down Warriorsare stillseemingly content to only visit us once a year,somewhat arrogantly hoping we'llsnub the "home" team (the Bulldogs) in favour of giving them our support instead. League has two options of the way it heads in the future. It heads downJessop's "invited tribes only" path and eventually retreatsso deep into its heartland that it gets lost and starves, or it dares to take one small step after another toshow the rest of the world what a universally entertaining languagethe game at its best can be. You only need to look at the ARU's almost Nazi-like initiative of issuing free green and gold attire to people that are probably asking "what's a line-out?" in between their"Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!" chants. That's enough to make me realise rugby leagueneeds to value places like Wellington, even ifit never really graduates fromthe status of 'league voyeur'.
