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Sports correspondent & historian with |
Double glory and celebrations at Mt Smart Stadium over the weekend shone the spotlight firmly on the playing field that can trace its history back to WW2.
An All Black blitzkrieg in the opening 40 minutes, followed by the expected Springbok comeback, thrilled the sellout crowd right up to the final whistle, in the 35-12 win.
Fast forward 21 hours, to another large crowd of passionate hometown fans witnessing another magic display, with the Warriors 44-12 victory
The Mount Smart Domain Board was established way back in 1943 to transform a former quarry. The saying that "good things take time", was certainly true at Mount Smart where the 1953 plan for a sports stadium finally came to fruition, with the official opening in 1967.
Athletics was the main attraction through the 1970's and 1980's. The South Auckland arena hosted the 1990 Commonwealth Games opening and closing ceremonies, as well as becoming the track and field hub for the Games.
A well buried piece of sporting history tells us that Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, who were treated as pariahs by the rest of the cricket world at the time, played three matches at Mt Smart in 1978, after being denied access to cricket grounds in Auckland
Mt Smart Stadium, which goes under the commercial name of Go Media Stadium (until the next commercial name change), has become the Warriors fortress since their first NRL match against the Brisbane Broncos, on March 10, 1995.
The Warriors first game saw some 29,220 rugby league fans journey to Mt Smart full of expectations for the future of the New Zealand's representatives in one of the toughest oval ball competitions in the world.
The resulting journey over the last 28 years, that can only be described as a turbo charged roller-coaster ride, has seen the Warriors reach two grand finals and also plunge to the depths of throwing up the white towel of surrender on occasions.
Only the most die-hard Warriors fans could have predicted the transformation of their team under rookie coach Andrew Webster at the start of the 2023 NRL year.
Monday's sporting media headlines gushed praise on both the All Blacks and Warriors in equally large portions.
1 News said "The Warriors have emerged as genuine finals threat after trouncing Cronulla 44-12 in arguably their best performance of a NRL season that continues to build impressively for the New Zealand based team".
"Ian Foster's men deliver emphatic World Cup statement at Mt Smart", screamed the Sunday Star-Times sporting headline.
The above statements remind me of the Tui ad again - Yeah Right. We have heard it all before, only to see it come crashing down for both our national rugby union team and our country's NRL representatives.
Yes, I want to see both the All Blacks and Warriors triumph in 2023 competition. If we win the Rugby World Cup or go deep in the NRL playoffs, celebrate with all the fervor that we can muster.
But if we don't reach the summit, accept the dedication commitment and hard work of the teams, and know that they are hurting much more than we are.
