Be honest, lads: Semenoff Stadium on a wet Friday night beats any
Dry-day rugby is for tourists, mate 😏 Honestly the 2023 comeback in that downpour beat anything I've seen at a sanitised Super Rugby stadium, Taniwha grinding back in the last ten while everyone's hiding under umbrellas, that's the real game. I've put the odd TAB multi on the dry-weather flash teams to slip over here, and the mud collects every time 🤡
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✓Wet Friday nights, sure, the atmosphere's magic and I wouldn't trade Semenoff for Eden Park on my worst day. But that 2023 comeback? Memory does funny things when you're soaked through and screaming. Everyone remembers the last ten minutes; nobody remembers the forty before it where we were second to every breakdown and the handling was diabolical on both sides. Amy, honest question: was that win actually better, or just better weather for a story? A dry-day win where the Taniwha actually build phases and finish properly tells you more about the side than a mud scramble decided by whoever's fitter. I love the atmosphere as much as anyone here, but I'd take one clean, dry, well-coached performance over another heroic scramble, because the scrambles keep happening when the fundamentals aren't there.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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Memory does funny things?? Mate I was there, soaked to the bone in the southern stand, voice gone by the 70th minute 😤 You don't FORGET a night like that, it's burned in. When we roared back in that last ten the whole ground lifted, blokes who didn't know each other hugging, kids on the fence screaming, Eden Park couldn't buy that feeling with a million NZ$. Give me mud on the boots and a wet Friday over a sanitised dry-day highlight reel any week 🔥 Who's with me?? 🙌
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Paul's got half a point about memory playing tricks, but here's the thing: I keep notes on most of the Bunnings NPC rounds and that 2023 comeback still stands out in the raw pattern, not just the romance. Sides defending a lead in genuinely wet conditions at home concede late far less often than you'd expect, territory and retention matter more than the scoreboard suggests, and Northland managed both in that last ten when most teams would've emptied the tank early. OldSchool is right that you don't forget a night like that, but the tape backs the feeling, which is rarer than it sounds. Small sample though, wet-weather finishes being a handful a season, so I'll hedge: probably better than any dry-day win at least in terms of what it says about the side's spine. The mud is the great equaliser 📊 and we wear it better than most.
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Back in the day we stood on the grass bank at Semenoff in worse mud than that, and nobody remembers the score - only the roar. That 2023 finish, hard out, beats any dry-day cruise.
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FrontRow, my old ears heard that and I nearly spat my tea out 😄 the roar you remember, sure, but my knees remember that 2023 night too, stood there soaked through with my son, and I'll tell you, watching the young lot claw it back in the last ten beats any dry-day cruise I've sat through at a sanitised ground. You didn't stand on the bank back then, mate, that's the difference.Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
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Both the romance and the result stuck for me, which is rare. Memory usually softens losses, not that one, the pattern in the notes matched the roar.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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I could be wrong, but my spreadsheet log of that night agrees with FixIsInPTSD, I was on the bank too, soaked, and the roar was louder than any try I've logged.
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NickDiehard logging roars on a spreadsheet, that's the driest thing in this thread 😂 Meanwhile I put $20 on the Taniwha at the TAB that night, mud pays better than any dry-day tip.Any stat can be bent.
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😂 Supporter_88 you put NZ$20 on us in the PISSING rain and still reckon the spreadsheet's dry?? At least Nick was ON the bank getting soaked with the rest of us. Nothing beats that last-ten roar tbh, you just know half those dry-day tourists went home early ah well, nowt to doYou don't abandon your own.
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haha Supporter_88, NZ$20 at the TAB doesn't buy you a place on the bank mate, i was there in '23 with water running down me neck and i'll tell you straight. That last ten minutes beat any dry-day win i've seen, and back in my day i sat through a few. seen worse nights than that one, never heard a better roar 😉Been here longer than some have followed.
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Fair point, Underdog. I still remember standing in the wind at the north end watching us come back in that slop — you can't fake an atmosphere like that, dry-day Super rounds never get close.
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GloryDays_4Life, I'm with you, and I'll add my own wrinkle: my notebook got soaked that night and I still transcribed the last ten minutes from memory when I got home, because some things you don't trust to soggy paper. Standing on the bank with water down my neck while the Taniwha roared back, that's the sort of night a dry Super Rugby stadium simply can't manufacture, and I've kept my spreadsheets long enough to know atmosphere never shows up in a column. I could be wrong, but I'd argue the mud win beats most dry-day ones for memory value alone. Only caveat I'd add: it's the rain that made it, sure, yet it's also that we'd grinded for seventy-odd minutes first. Weather gets the glory, the work in the slop earns it. Bledisloe nights are the one dry exception, mind. Even I'll allow that.Do the math before you argue.
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FrontRowFan transcribing from memory 😂 that's the spirit. Mud rugby separates the real heads from the umbrellas crowd, simple as. Amy would last ten minutes on the bank 🤡
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I could be wrong, but I reckon the honest answer is that we don't actually need to rank them. That wet Friday comeback lives where it lives - the slop, the noise off the bank, the last ten minutes. While a dry-day win feeds the table. Two different currencies, and I'd rather be rich in both. Keep arguing, lads, I'm enjoying this one 📊Do the math before you argue.
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ChrisDiehard's got it right, two different currencies. I'll take the table points any week, my multi needs dry turf to land 😅 but that slop night is the stuff you remember. Weirdly the wet ones are better value on the under line too, sloppy hands, tight scoreline.Value over a big price 💸