Review: NRL Family Membership

This Saturday, the St. George-ILLAWARRA Dragons play the New Zealand Warriors in Wollongong, in a match for the rugby league championship belt.

It is the also the final NRL match this season in our three-game family membership, where we take the twins R and J to the footy (O has been deemed too young at this stage). 

Here are some of the highlights from the first two matches we attended...

Round 9 - 2:00pm Sunday 6th May, at Kogarah
St. George-ILLAWARRA Dragons 34 - 14 Melbourne Storm

My wife grew up about five minutes from Kogarah Oval, and the plan was to drop off O at her family home and get a ride to the ground before 1pm.

Instead we left at about 130pm, with assurances from others that we didn't want to get there early, because there would be nothing to do, and so on.

As we got to the gate, the kids were excited to be handed their own membership passes, especially because they were on lanyards. J held his out flat, away from his body, and declared, "I'm ready to scan".

But he wasn't ready - the lady working at the gate had to help him scan properly to open the turnstile.

Once inside the ground, it turned out there was something for me to do. That something was queuing for 30 minutes for food, and missing the first 20 minutes of the match, because we were late to arrive. Luckily the person in front of me in the queue had the game streaming on his phone. I watched over his shoulder as we slowly inched towards service.

Now I know every footy fan gets misty-eyed with nostalgia about suburban ground footy, but when the ground is full yet the staff levels and facilities are roughly equivalent of a primary school canteen, it's actually pretty shit.

When I finally got to my seat, I spent the next 60 minutes trying to stop the kids from descending into complete boredom. They love the footy at Henson Park, where they can run around the hill, and on the field at halftime and post-game. Being stuck in a seat was a different experience for them.

The most excited R got was at halftime, when they were playing dance music over the PA system. We told him they were giving away $100 to the best dancer in the crowd, which was true. He busted some serious moves standing on his seat in an attempt to win that money.

In the second half, when they played the same music after each try, we told him the $100 was still up for grabs. This was a lie. But the people in our section did enjoy his dancing.

At the end of the game, I asked J if he liked the game. He replied, "yes, but it was a bit boring. Who won?"

Round 15 - 5:30pm Saturday 16th June, at Wollongong
St. George-ILLAWARRA Dragons 32 - 8 Manly Sea Eagles

This time we arrived early, allowing time to get freebies like team posters, check out the paid merchandise - R got a beanie and J got a flag - and buy food and drink well before kickoff.

Since we were a bit more settled this time, I committed to making a greater effort to help the boys understand the game and hopefully not be bored straight away.

I realised I had my work cut out for me when, 15 minutes in, J asked me: "where is the wickersnicker?"

I replied, "you mean wicketkeeper. And that's cricket."

Eventually J got into it, but I had change the focus from explaining attack to explaining defence. I should have known, as the kid loves physicality - when he plays soccer he tackles (pushes over) whoever has the ball, even if they are on his own team. When I once asked him about it, he said, "I try not to tackle my team, but sometimes my body can't stop itself."

So we watched some of the tackling, and he was cuddling up to me because it was really cold, and I could feel his body bracing with the impact and shaking on every contact. This went on for about 10 minutes, in complete silence.

Meanwhile R is generally more interested in following the game, but his main priority is actually eating hot chips and drinking lemonade. At halftime, he demanded another can of the fizzy stuff. But since he'd already shared one whole can with his brother, I knocked him back. Too much sugar.

Then I went and got another beer for me.

His second priority remains fashion - he was very disappointed that it was so cold that he had to wear his thick black jacket and cover his Dragons t-shirt.

Did I mention it was really cold?

When I bought the family membership, I splurged on Bronze level, because that was seated and I didn't really fancy managing little kids on a packed hill. At the time this was viewed as an extravagance by certain others. But as we froze in our windswept seats at a far corner of the ground, which would still be far more comfortable than the hill, my wife pointed over to the other stand and asked, "how do we get there next year?" 

She was pointing at the Gold level seating in the covered stand at the halfway line. It's a long way from the General Admission section.