The Fox

I grew up in a rugby league town, but the occasional roar of the crowd from the local stadium when the wind happened to be blowing in our direction was the only reason I knew the game existed. Because while we were part of a rugby league town, we weren’t a part of rugby league. We weren’t part of the coal mining industry, we weren’t working class, and we weren’t tangata whenua. So rugby league wasn’t for us. It was for ‘them’. It was our loss – I only fully understand that now, 40 years on.

Rugby league only fully lodged itself in my consciousness when I got to a big city high school. The game was cool there, despite the demographics not really matching up. It was the early ‘90s and the NSWRL was what everyone talked about at lunch time. School mufti days were a rainbow array of Australian rugby league jerseys – the orange of Balmain, the maroon of Manly, the green of Canberra – we all wanted one whether we truly cared about league or not. If you didn’t have a team you might as well have been a Kylie Minogue fan for all the social capital you would have had.

And at State of Origin time you declared allegiance to an Australian state you had absolutely no connection to and defended it like Hōne Heke defended Ruapekapeka.

Then you mature.

My relationship with sport has changed a lot since high school, and it’s changed even more in the last couple of years. I want to say I appreciate the little things now, but that’s simply not true because they aren’t the little things at all anymore. The little things are the big things and the big things are the little things.

Which team beats which team, in the grand scheme of things, has no emotional shelf life. Those two teams have played each other hundreds of times before – all with different combinations of scores and different results, and they will keep playing each other twice a year every year long after you have been scattered over a nice piece of beach you used to walk along with your one true love. Who wins an old hunk of wood with a few bits of plated silver nailed around it only matters until the season starts all over again from scratch with every team on zero points in a few short months.

And maturing means you don’t have to follow anyone else’s rules anymore. You don’t have to drink a certain beer brand to be a real man, you can listen to all the Kylie Minogue you want and you don’t have to be bound by allegiance to an animal name. You can love a game for whatever makes a difference to you.

You can love it for the things that really matter, like the way it makes you feel. The atmosphere, the smiles on people’s faces, kids kicking a ball around on the sideline, the uncompromising yet respectful spirit in which it’s played, the ebb and flow of the game – waves of play lapping at each end of the field like a gentle Pacific beach on a still day, occasionally crashing over the try-line and disturbing the seaweed at the high water mark.

It’s like graduating from cheap beer to fine wine. Instead of drinking to get drunk you drink to appreciate the subtleties of the flavours. Some people barrack for their favourite beer brands. Nobody barracks for a 2017 Brookfields Sun Dried Malbec. I don’t barrack for sports teams anymore. I simply appreciate their flavours.

And just as you can’t appreciate wine by watching it on TV, sport is the same. I’ve cancelled my Sky subscription because elite sport is just that – elitist. Soulless and empty.

It doesn’t always occur to you to try the local game but when I finally tried local rugby league earlier this year I absolutely loved the taste. It’s a whānau game. It’s relaxed and chill. I observed fans cheering for both teams, big smiles from players and spectators alike and almost no toxic male bravado compared to other codes. I’ve spent a lot of time hanging around a lot of different sports and rugby league has far and away the best atmosphere of them all.

Grassroots New Zealand rugby league is where it’s at. I get that now. And I’m here to stay.