First NRL Game

The Canberra Raiders are an Australian professional rugby league football club here in Canberra. They have competed in Australasia's elite rugby league competition, the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership since 1982. Tonight we went to a Raiders game here  in Canberra.  I'd like to say a good time was had by all, but the girls were not too into the game, and the poor Raiders lost 14-42 to the Manly Sea Eagles.  It seems the Sanders attendance at the game was not great luck for them.

We probably should have learned anything about rugby before we went to the game, but part of the point was to just experience an Australian sporting event.  The stadium didn't feel that big, but that being said, the only partially full stadium tonight had an attendance of 14,000 people, so it still fits a fair amount of people.  

I think an advantage of a stadium this size is that there really aren't any bad seats.  We had a great view of the game, even though we unwittingly sat ourselves in the visitors section.  Oops.  The visitors were are all very nice.  The couple in front of us realized we knew NOTHING and graciously filled us in on many of the rules during half time. Here are some pictures Mike got from our seats:

Raiders are in lime green

Here is a picture of the girls still in a good mood before the game really got going:

We had arrived a little late due to a scheduling snafu (someone (me) didn't check our calendar before we bought the tickets).  The Raiders had already scored 8 of their 14 points before we sat down.    

Here are the girls when something exciting happened during the game:

 

 It is winter here so it was a little bit chilly, but it didn't feel quite as chilly to me as it did to the girls.  While Mike and I enjoyed the game, it wasn't exactly riveting for the 12 year old.  She spent the majority of the game like this: 

I liked watching the rugby match because it moves at pretty fast pace.  The game started at 4 and was over by a little after 6pm.  The players were really fast.  It was really pretty impressive how quickly they were passing the ball. I'd love to tell you I learned a lot about the game, but that would be a lie.  It was definitely fun to watch (despite what the girls may tell you). I would go again, but maybe next time without the children.