Skilled Park

G’day everyone and hello to you all again. Tonight I’m going to talk to you about Skilled Park; a simply wonderful venue for rugby league. I made my maiden trip down there last week, dressed in my best Broncos jersey, and was blown away by the facility. I’m a regular at Suncorp Stadium and south-east Queensland is so lucky to have two world-class rugby league stadiums.

I didn’t intend to head down to the game but when the opportunity came up I jumped at it. My mate and I, who have attended a stack of footy games together, drove down to a nearby area before catching the train one stop to Robina. That station is 200 metres away from Skilled Park and they have set up a nice, easy walkway directly to the venue.

One of the surprising things about the ground is it is literally in the middle of nowhere. I had no idea about that; there were actually cows grazing on surrounding paddocks. Inside the ground is pretty special too.

All reports of it being a ‘mini Suncorp Stadium’ are correct. We were sitting about halfway up the southern stand, behind the goal posts, and had the same sort of view we get in Brisbane. Of course we were in enemy territory too, another first for me. That was great, I wouldn’t call it hostile as such, but I could definitely feel I was in the minority.

There are two massive features of Skilled Park that hit me: flags and noise.

It seemed every Titans fan had a flag! Their ground announcer made the call to start waving flags and looking across the crowd it was a sea of blue. It actually looked like a wave, it was almost hypnotic but a fabulous thing to see as well. Television doesn’t do it justice, you’d have to go down and see it for yourself. I’m not sure if flags are banned at Suncorp Stadium, but I have never seen anything like that up here.

But the noise, my God it was loud. I’d heard the stories about the place but you could almost see the sounds bouncing off the walls. The best way I can describe the design of the stadium is like a cylinder along each boundary. The whole thing just echoes and it’s like the noise can’t escape out the roof. The cheer when Kevin Gordon snared an intercept in the second half and ran 100 metres to score was the loudest I’d heard in rugby league. I’ve been to State of Origins and the one event I can recall coming close was the fight after the ‘up-and-under’ in Origin III this year.

Unfortunately there are some areas for the stadium to work on.

Leaving the venue was a real challenge and almost dampened the whole experience. As mentioned we only had to travel one stop on the train to get to the car but that trip took us over an hour. There was a capacity 27,000 crowd there but unfortunately they only have one entry/exit walkway. This wasn’t helped by a series of ‘bottlenecks’ where the crowd was forced to merge into narrower walkways or stadium exits. Some of this trip to the public transport was done in sheer darkness too which could cause problems should someone fall over or a young child get separated.

I did want to write a news story on this for our uni website, www.subtropic.com.au, but ran out of time this week. I have heard from Skilled Park Venue Manager David Lloyd about some of these issues.

Mr Lloyd claimed all patrons were exited and on public transport within an hour and the lack of size of Robina Station (two platforms, one direction) compared to Roma Street or Milton Station (many platforms, various directions), located near Suncorp Stadium, meant it is impossible to compare the systems.

“The venue has a transport plan and over 90% of patrons utilise the public transport services when attending events at Skilled Park,” Mr Lloyd said.

“Whenever 27,000 plus people try and exit the venue all at the same time going in the same direction there may be some minor delays getting on to the transport Hub.”

That really was the only blip on the Skilled Park experience. Not being familiar with the area it’s not appropriate for me to suggest viable suggestions. I’m sure the good people will work on it. That aside, Skilled Park is a fabulous venue and I strongly urge every rugby league fan to try and take a chance to watch their team play at Skilled Park.

Semi-Finals
As for the Titans, I reckon they’ll have a real task on their hands this week. I’m honestly struggling to see them beat the Eels on Friday. Parramatta are playing well and I’m not sure the Titans have the game to win a massive semi-final. They’ve been towelled up by Manly and conceded 40 points against the Broncos last week.

I hope I’m wrong, I really do. Every single Queensland rugby league fan wants to see an all-Queensland Grand Final one day and my word, a Titans/Broncos decider this year would be awesome!

The Broncos I’m a little more confident in. I, like most people, thought the Dragons had a play left this season, something big for the backend of the year. Now, I’m not so sure. I won’t write them off but I can definitely see them slipping out the back door. The Broncos are playing well and despite the 40-32 score last week, I think they have solid defence. Combine that with a lacklustre Dragons attack and I can see a 6-8 point win for Brisbane on Saturday night.

Tips this week: Eels, Brisbane
Last week: 3/4 (Total: 115/190)
Winning percentage: 61%

I’m going on holidays this weekend for a week and won’t actually see the Broncos v Dragons match, but please feel free to email me on andrew.keyte@gmail.com for your thoughts on the finals, Skilled Park or anything else.

I won’t be here next week but my early pick for the Grand Final is Melbourne Storm. They look fresh and are full of dangerous players; they destroyed Manly last week and look really good. Storm to play Bulldogs in the big one.

But if I have things my way, it’ll be Titans vs. Broncos. We, up here in Queensland, can only hope!

I’ll be back in two weeks for a Grand Final preview,Keyto