Accor Stadium

Take a look behind the scenes of rugby league's showpiece event. Michael Chammas was at Accor Stadium with all the news and gossip from the series opener.

A large continent of fans weren’t able to get into the stadium in time for kick-off. The Herald was invited in to take a photo of ARLC chairman Peter V’landys and his special guest. Penrith coach Ivan Cleary recently complained about the treatment of his son Nathan Cleary after kicks. Channel Nine, the publishers of this masthead, are working on a special behind the scenes piece to run in the lead up to Origin II in Perth in a couple of weeks’ time. The crowd were willing the plane over the fence, which it managed to do, but the icing on the cake was the one-handed catch from Queensland assistant coach Johnathan Thurston, who hurled the plane back into the crowd after a round of applause for his snare. He couldn’t hide his bias late in the game, yelling out ‘Go Munster’ as the five-eighth threatened to run the length of the field against the run of play.