Say what you will about the NRL, but it takes itself a whole lot less seriously than that Victorian code.
Unlike the AFL Grand Final weekend, with its champagne breakfasts and self-important pomp, rugby’s league’s showpiece has fewer pretensions at being some kind of networking event for the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge set.
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Still, the league did manage to get a few big names out to Accor Stadium, that charmless suburban concrete bowl named after a mid-range hotel conglomerate.
On Sunday night, the Penrith Panthers made history, both by winning an absurd four-peat, while also remaining the neutral’s favourite because their opponents were the perennially irritating Melbourne Storm, finals fixtures for what feels like forever.
Both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his opposite number Peter Dutton were guests at the Accor Stadium’s President’s Suite, and both backed the Panthers before Sunday night’s game. The politically astute move, we think.
Albanese was accompanied by his fiancée Jodie Haydon, with the pair of Souths’ diehards no doubt reminiscing about that club’s drought-breaking premiership a whole decade ago now.
Also in the good seats were Premier Chris Minns (a bulldogs man), Opposition Leader Mark Speakman, the fun-loving NSW Governor Margaret Beazley, and former AFL Commissioner Sam Mostyn, who is now, of course, the Governor-General.
She wasn’t the only Aussie Rules type around, with former AFL boss turned Tabcorp chief executive Gil McLachlan was forced to hang out with the same politicians he’s so ruthlessly banned from the betting giant’s Melbourne Cup marquee.
Rounding out that political contingent were Sports Minister Anika Wells (who never misses an event such as this one) and Minister for International Development and the Pacific Pat Conroy, working with the NRL on its bid for an expansion team in Papua New Guinea. No surprises that the Pacific nation’s leader James Marape was also in the suite.
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