Without sounding too soppy, it was just a magical day. Top 3 day of my life.
Early in the week we were organising some friends to come down. Flights were $1500 from Brisbane to Sydney, $1000 from Brisbane to Newcastle, and $1200 from Brisbane to Canberra. So we knew the crowd was going to be so one sided.
We booked in Campbelltown - it just made sense seeing as we were driving from the west, and the stadium is west. Saves an hour travel each way, if we don't get the win. Catching the train in, for every 10 Broncos fans, 1 Melbourne dude hopped on. I found our crowd to be really nervous and not chirpy, but general feeling heading in was that we had a free crack at this GF and the pressure was all on Melbourne. At least that's how we were chatting with the randoms on the train. Coping mechanisms.
Get to the stadium, and we were so nervous that we decided to walk out some nerves by doing a lap of the stadium. This was the merch tent at the Melbourne Storm end. Broncos line on the left, Melbourne line on the right. We might as well have been at Lang Park.
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Get into the stadium and the maroon and yellow is everywhere. The roar for the ladies and their victory was immense. The Broncos signs in the Melbourne bays. Just peak shithousery.
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They then had Red Bull pilots doing acrobatics over the stadium which was epic. The stalling had my palms sweaty though, would have been just my luck that the plane crash landed on my skull. They were much closer than this photo suggests, but it was cool.
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Teddy Swims is objectively talented. Wasn't the biggest fan of his songs, but I will be now because they are part of my favourite memories. Light up wristbands were pointless given it was barely dark. No photos of that.
Broncos come out, and it really has to have been the most one sided Grand Final crowd in history. Dead set - Broncos vs Panthers we had 70%. This was at least, 85%, but possibly 90%.
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Even the Accor Stadium membership side was maroon.
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Kickoff - Mariner scores - crowd goes ballistic. I've shit my pants because I thought he went out. Let me tell you, the crowd went from insane noise to pin drop silence while we waited what seemed like an eternity for it to be allowed.
Melbourne score their three, and the crowd is very little quiet. A symptom of the one sided crowd. This is where Accor really flops. The gaping hole just can't trap noise like Suncorp can, those level 7 noise containers at Suncorp are the greatest things for holding atmosphere.
Then Walshy's try. I'll never forget looking up in the big level 6 sides and seeing the stands shake/flex when they fired up Chelsea Dagger. Great engineering, but it really is surreal to see it. The small screen over in the north eastern corner was hanging on for DEAR LIFE!
Half time - I was in the bay with all the old boys. The 2015 chaps not in media commitments were there. Alex Glenn, Jack Reed, Matt Gillett, etc, JYY, Petero was there too. The Broncos staff were also in that bay, so I remember looking at them and they looked really relaxed, and I was thinking ah, we might be all good.
Went and got the shittest pizza of my life, that a bald 5 foot Storm fan waved his flag in - I'm not a violent bloke and crowd shenanigans doesn't usually bother me, it's part of the ridiculousness of live sport, but he deserved to be bitch slapped, but he was short and bald so life had done him in already. Wonder how he is now, hope he's well!
Second half starts and it's all a blur. Arey puts it out. I see Tui bomb the try (we all knew it was a no try immediately) and my partner turned to me and said "has he dropped the Grand Final"???
The rest happens and the crowd gets more bonkers. Like absolutely bonkers. Level 6 flexing like a 787 wing at Chelsea Dagger - just the amount of our fans there getting into it, looking up in level 6 was just wow. Special memories now.
Paps and Warbrick bombing one. Taking Xavier into touch. Loirero binned. Walshy picking the right way and hitting Paps. Wowser. The Riki intercept. The only crowd celebration at Accor that can compete would be Cronulla winning in 2016, or 2014 Origin 2. Which I was at both. I've never hugged so many randoms. Was hugging the old boys, the blonde lady that is the Broncos Suncorp Stadium announcer, I was a superspreader. People were just in shock that we finally did it.
I've never seen more people stay for a trophy ceremony too:
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Train ride to the city was everything. More hugging. High fives everywhere. I was in the same carriage as the Melbourne Fan Group - could tell because they had a surf board bag with the big flags in it. I asked politely and innocently if it "was a body bag containing Stefano's body" - bro didn't even laugh, had a head like a slapped arse.
Then I just got so impossibly drunk that I don't remember getting back to the Hotel haha. Now I will watch the replay every day until next October like the rest of us.
