A Night On the Booze With the Most Fanatical Fan Army in Rugby

Don Rowe spent Super Rugby’s opening night getting hammered with the Highlanders Army: one of the loudest, most intense fan clubs in the game.

It was an hour before the opening game of the 2016 Super Rugby season, and the Kingslander Tavern was full to the brim with drunks. The big, no-nonsense bar sits in the belly of an old grain store on the last stretch of road before the barren wastes of west Auckland. It’s also only five minutes walk from the Blues’ home ground, Eden Park, making it a perfect location for that most Kiwi of pre-match rituals: getting royally fucked up on cheaper beer than you can at the game.

When I arrived, that ritual was already well underway. The few Blues fans in the pub were drinking like they were about to bite down on a bit of leather and have their shattered legs cut off with a blunt bone saw on a moving boat. But visiting Highlanders fans were drinking like their student counterparts down south at the arse end of O Week.

They were members of the Highlanders Army, a support team 1500 strong as of last year’s final in Wellington. Accordingly, they were decked out in numbered, limited edition bucket hats, Highlanders jerseys, face paint, kilts, and all the accoutrements of serious fandom. To them, the game was a foregone conclusion, as it was to pretty much anyone who had seen a Blues game in the past five years.

“It’s about making the boys feel at home, wherever they are,” Highlanders Army organiser George Harper told me, a red megaphone slung at his side. I nodded my head, gripped my glass of beer and tried not to spew cheap Friday bourbon drank quick on the floor.

Considering the Kingslander looked more like the infamous Captain Cook pub, the Highlanders Army were doing a bloody good job of it. There were old scarfies, young scarfies, literally-wearing-a-scarf scarfies. Men wore flags like kilts, and there was even a guy wearing a Highlanders jersey over a full gorilla suit - an impressive feat given the murderous Auckland humidity.

I complimented one fan’s sizeable flag. “It used to be bigger,” he insisted. “Fucken Customs made me cut the handle off!” I complimented the dedication he showed by stuffing a flag into his carry-on luggage, but he was already gone, careening away into the blue and yellow crowd.

Here and there, regulars were drinking slow and deliberate. You can tell regulars of any pub by their slump. It’s a particular curvature of the spine that one develops only after years of toil in front of the pokie machine. It’s different to that of the modern office worker or cellphone user - somehow more defeated, more resigned to the slow but inexorable flow of their children’s university funds into the pocket of the Lottery Commission.

No surprise then that they declined to join in with a stirring rendition of Seven Nation Army, one where Jack White’s iconic guitar riff was replaced with the name of the Highlanders first-five and playmaker Lima Sopoaga.

“Liiiima-sopo-aaa-gaaa, liima sopo-aa-aa-aa-aaa-gaaa”

Nor did they partake in the box of free flags, courtesy of the Highlanders Army.

From White Stripes to white christmas, we were “walking in a Lima wonderland” (‘It’s his 50th cap, mate!’) and very soon walking out the door, across Sandringham Road, down Walters Street and through Gate D of Eden Park.

Security staff are inherently distrustful of basically everyone, but particularly people with smiles on their faces and flags in their hands. Reeks of too much fun, which isn’t tolerated at Eden Park. Thus the Highlanders Army attracted some attention as they stormed the gates.

No contraband was found, Highlanders Army general George Harper’s megaphone being stashed behind a hairdressers on the way down, and the troops marched onwards, doing much damage to the stadium’s supply of Speights four-packs en route to their position behind the eastern posts.

With incredible luck, we arrived perfectly between the end of the pre-match ‘entertainment’ and the start of the only thing that anyone was there for. As the sun dipped behind the western stand, the boys took to the field, Highlanders running west to east in their terrible green away kit.

Anyone who’s tried to watch rugby on the booze-soaked terraces of Waikato Stadium’s green zone knows that paying attention to the game when you’re surrounded by a bunch of riotous lads is no small task. Sometimes it’s just more fun to look at the guy in a giant gorilla suit drinking beer through his mask than peering at a set piece at the far end of the field. The situation could have deteriorated quickly.

Luckily, the faithful didn’t have to wait long, as Ben Smith crashed over in the eighth minute for the first try of the season, one eleven phases in the making. The Army was well pleased, leaping to their feet in a storm of spilt beer and waving flags. And despite being absolutely crushed by a rampaging Blake Gibson, Smith was back at it twenty minutes later, setting up newcomer Teihorangi Walden with a sneaky skip-pass to score under the posts.

But it was the other Smith, Aaron, who sent the Army into frenzy, chipping a box kick for the streaking Waisake Naholo to grab from about six metres above the ground before touching down to put the Highlanders ahead at half time.

“Fucken Naholo mate, legend!”

Things got a little dire in the second half as the humidity took its toll on the players and beer prices took its toll on the army (or on me, anyway). What started as a free-for-all with five tries and consistent hard running slowed to a tense chess match as the Blues kicked themselves into the lead and looked to secure their advantage. In the stands, the few Blues fans sprinkled amidst the Highlanders Army became emboldened and engaged in a bit of banter. It was bold stuff from a fanbase who haven’t seen a final in some time. “How’s that, eh?” one asked rhetorically. “I support the Chiefs,” I said.

Disaster struck for the Highlanders in the 70th minute when Patrick Osborne was yellow carded for entering the ruck from the side, a decision which didn’t sit well with the assembled fans. The Blues drove off the penalty, Tuipulotu scoring against the post to put the home team out in front by nine points.

There were several incredible moments in the dying minutes of the game, as the Highlanders ran nearly the length of the field with Ben Smith eventually scoring in the corner off the back of a ruck. A conversion brought the Highlanders within two points, a hair away from victory. Similarly, two streakers made inspired dashes down the green, both coming up just short of evading security with one taking a good, old-fashioned tickle for his troubles.

But no matter, only the Blues put any stock in the opening game of the season. And anyway, the Kingslander was just five minutes back the other way.