We went to see the All Blacks play against the South Africa Springboks at Carisbrook on Saturday night. The game was sold out, about 29000 people, so we decided to go about an hour and a half early. Good thing we did because even so we had to park about half-way up Eglinton, in fact probably about half-way from home to Carisbrook. We walked down the hill and into the stadium, fighting our way through the crowds to our seats in the Railway stands, 4 rows back and 45 degrees up from the try area corner.
It was a great night, with clear skies and pretty warm for a Dunedin winter evening. After finding our seats, Fa and Hank went back for hot dogs on sticks with chips, which was our dinner. We were seated right behind a group of Springbok fans, but they were pretty polite throughout the match.
The atmosphere was electric as the final people filed in and the national anthems were sung. Our mayor, Peter Chin, sang the New Zealand anthem. Then the All Blacks performed the Haka, which is always exciting on the telly but was fantastic to finally see in person.
The game got underway and went back and forth for first half, ending with a 17-15 Springbok lead. In the second half, the ABs eventually took the lead. At the 72nd minute, with the All Blacks ahead 28-23, a Springbok got sin-binned, so it looked like we’d be able to hold them off for the final 8 minutes with a man advantage, but then with 4 minutes to go, they somehow scored a try and got the conversion. The last few minutes were frantic, with a final attempted drop-goal, which was blocked, and that was it. South Africa won for the first time at the House of Pain. The South Africans around us went crazy. We filed out and back home, but we had a great time and decided we’d see the All Blacks any time they came back to Dunedin.
Haka:
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