Like most high-end corporate suites, the Chairman’s Room at Suncorp Stadium is a fantasy land of fancy booze, fancy party pies and very fancy people.
During NRL Magic Round — a four-day assault on the senses, nerves and back pocket that mercifully ended on Sunday night — the room pulsated with rugby league powerbrokers, media industry heavyweights, sporting legends and politicians.
One minute you could be chatting to America’s Cup hero and Swimming Australia boss John Bertrand. The next, you’re standing in a circle with Brad Fittler, leading Brisbane surgeon Reza Adib, and his partner Annastacia Palaszczuk, the former Queensland premier who was eating a tiny cupcake.
In late 2020, as the world shook off COVID-19 restrictions, Fittler suspected Palaszczuk had agreed to a request from then-Queensland coach Wayne Bennett to allow a capacity crowd at Suncorp for the deciding State of Origin match.
The Maroons won 20-14, but now here they were, Freddy and Chook, chatting away like old friends. Magic Round: bringing people together.
It wasn’t all rainbows, unicorns and Palaszczuks in the Chairman’s Room this weekend, though. Rather, it was the setting for a heady battle between ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys and the Minister for the Pacific, Pat Conroy, over a PNG team being admitted to the NRL.
The Women’s State of Origin match on Thursday was a roaring success.Credit: Getty
If the bid is successful next month, the discussions inside those four wood-panelled walls will be remembered for salvaging it.
Thursday night’s Women’s State of Origin match provided a healthy insight into the game’s future.
A record crowd of 25,492 of mostly young girls and their mothers were in attendance while almost one million TV viewers watched on Channel Nine nationally — almost double the audience for the AFL match between Geelong and the Gold Coast in Darwin on Channel Seven at the same time.
Inside the Chairman’s Room, V’landys was thrilled with the result but, as the last alcoholic ginger beer slid down an hour after full-time, he was spoiling for a fight.
“Tomorrow will make or break the PNG deal,” he admitted.
It wasn’t hyperbole. In September last year, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told him he was prepared to cough up a staggering $600 million over 10 years to fund a PNG team.
In simple terms, the Pacific has become a geopolitical battleground with China and rugby league, oddly, has become a secret weapon.
In August 2022, the Solomon Islands government accepted a US$66 million loan from China to allow telecommunications giant Huawei to construct 161 mobile phone towers.
“If not for those towers, we’re probably not having this discussion,” one media boss mused.
Rugby league diplomacy: Pacific Minister Pat Conroy presents PNG Prime Minister James Marape with a Queensland Maroons jersey in Canberra earlier this year..Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
When Albanese asked PNG Prime Minister James Marape what it would take to secure his country’s loyalty to Australia, the response was clear: an NRL team for his rugby league-obsessed people to be announced before the country’s 50-year independence celebrations in 2025.
V’landys’ eyes widened when Albanese mentioned the enormous sum on the table, but he’s become increasingly annoyed in recent months as bureaucrats squabble about how it will be spent.
Essentially, the NRL wants a large chunk of the funds allocated to schools, community programs and junior development to make the PNG team based out of Port Moresby the “Penrith of the Pacific”.
Otherwise, it’s just a shiny new toy easily discarded when the money dries up or the government changes.
Clearly fed up, V’landys used a Friday morning media conference to lash the government for its dithering — “This is D-Day!” he declared — while Conroy wasn’t in the mood to be bullied.
“When I negotiate with people, I do it behind closed doors,” he said, before announcing the Queensland Reds rugby union side would play matches in Tonga under the PacificAus Sports program. “I’m announcing a deepening of our partnership with rugby union, so it’s self-evident that the Australian government has a number of options about who we partner with.”
According to sources familiar with negotiations, the rugby union reference infuriated V’landys, who strongly considered walking away from the negotiations later that day.
As the opening match of Magic Round between Canberra and Canterbury kicked off on Friday night, V’landys, Conroy and their respective entourages were going head-to-head in the boardroom on level two.
At 6.40pm, V’landys emerged from the lifts on level five with NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo, commissioner and former Queensland sports minister Kate Jones and corporate affairs boss Misha Zelinsky in tow.
The quartet made a beeline for the Chairman’s Room, but a handful of reporters quickly collared V’landys, who explained how the game wanted to expand to 20 teams but that business cases for any new franchise — including PNG, the Perth Bears, Christchurch and Brisbane Easts — had to be established before any decisions were made.
Not everyone in rugby league is convinced about the merits of a PNG team.
The suggestion that those who sign with the new franchise will be exempt from paying tax has gone down like a bad corporate box prawn with clubs, who operate under a strict salary cap.
Then there’s the Forbidden City, an extravagant $100 million compound to be constructed in Port Moresby for players and coaching staff to shield them from the violence and crime for which the sprawling PNG capital is notorious.
As V’landys and his cohort disappeared into their suite, Channel Nine expert Paul Vautin was walking by.
Would he have considered, during his illustrious playing career, gobbling up tax-free dollars to play in PNG?
“Nnnnnnnnever!” he said. “Not a chance.”
‘The Rugby World Cup for bogans’
Of course, these corporate box shenanigans mean little to the rugby league masses who have been making the annual pilgrimage to Brisbane since 2019 for Magic Round.
Caxton Street has become Freakshow Alley of sorts; a strange mixture of young families pushing strollers in the sun alongside sloshed young men with flared nostrils and raccoon-eyes who have barely slept.
As you walked towards the stadium, the sea of retro jumpers is a reminder of rugby league’s past: the Video Ezy Canberra Raiders, the Dahdah Uniforms Penrith Panthers, the City Ford Roosters.
“Magic Round is like the Rugby World Cup for bogans,” one fan told me. “Or a Taylor Swift concert for middle-aged men.”
I tried to get his name, but he was caught in a throng of Reg Reagans, never to be seen again. I hope he made it.
Magic Round is a test of endurance for all concerned – not least Suncorp Stadium ground manager Matthew Oliver, whose team works around the clock to ensure the playing surface remains intact.
Warriors fans create some atmosphere at Suncorp Stadium on Sunday.Credit: Getty
On Thursday, 19 millimetres of rain made his job slightly tougher.
“We won’t have any divoting,” Oliver said. “We’ll get scuff and scarring on the field, but we’re confident the ground can stand the rigours of nine matches in four days.”
As the Sharks and Roosters slugged it out in the second of three matches played on Saturday night, those scuffs and scars became noticeable in the middle of the field.
“It might look a little rough on the surface, but it’s stable underneath,” Abdo assured.
The same could be argued of rugby league, which continues to charge along despite the myriad negative headlines that regularly haunt it.
On the eve of the women’s Origin match, reports emerged that a former Queensland player had been accused of sexual assault. No charges have been laid so far.
On Saturday morning, Penrith winger Taylan May was preparing to fly to Brisbane with his teammates for Sunday afternoon’s clash with the Warriors. Instead, he stayed at home after being arrested and charged by police with domestic violence offences.
Earlier in the week, Broncos prop Payne Haas and his younger brother, Klese, who plays for the Titans, were told their father, Gregor, had been arrested in the Philippines, accused of smuggling more than five kilograms of methamphetamine into Indonesia late last year. He could face the death penalty if found guilty.
The dramatic turn of events didn’t affect how either played. Payne swung through the Manly defence like a wrecking ball in his side’s 13-12 win on Friday night while Klese scored the opening try in the Titans’ 28-24 loss to Newcastle on Saturday.
The Titans had one last chance to snatch that game when they were given the feed into a scrum on halfway with seconds on the clock.
“Just give me the f—ing ball,” centre Brian Kelly demanded.
When they did, he threw an errant pass over the sideline and the Knights won.
‘It’s not as dangerous as people think’
Conroy might juggle difficult federal portfolios, but at his very core he’s a rugby league man who follows the Roosters.
Sitting in the comfy padded seats outside the Chairman’s Room, he rode every decision and play in his side’s thrilling 38-30 loss to the Sharks.
Fans pack the national stadium in Port Moresby to watch the Kumuls in action.Credit: Getty
Inside, Sydney businessman Richard Pegum sat at a large round table alongside several large, Papuan men wearing footy jumpers from various clubs.
A part-owner in 2000 Melbourne Cup winner Brew, Pegum is a prominent figure in the racing industry so has a close relationship with V’landys, who is the chief executive of Racing NSW.
Pegum also has business interests in PNG, including being a shareholder in Mayur Resources, which is building a cement works to service the construction of more than 60,000 kilometres of road through the country.
Over the three days, Pegum hosted a range of PNG figures, including PNG internal security minister Peter Tsiamalili, mining minister Muguwa Dilu and Mineral Resources Authority managing director Jerry Garry.
“I’ve been travelling to Port Moresby for many years, it’s not as dangerous as people think,” Pegum said. “The security issues are overrated. I told Peter some time ago that if he needed a hand to reach out. I want to do what’s right for PNG and what’s right for Australia.”
As he said this, the Penrith of Penrith were in a dogfight with one of rugby league’s earliest expansion teams, the New Zealand Warriors.
The Warriors’ renaissance under coach Andrew Webster has been coming apart at the seams so far this season.
Yet here they were, with less than two minutes to play, two points up against the three-time defending premiers.
As the Panthers desperately searched for a late try, the ball swept wide only for halfback Jack Cole, who was filling in for the hamstrung Nathan Cleary, to be smacked into the middle of next week by Warriors centre Adam Pompey.
Penrith were awarded a penalty for a strip later in the play, and as Dylan Edwards lined up goal kick he would end up missing, Cole started to feel uneasy.
He walked over to halfway, went down on his haunches and vomited.
“Eeeew!” several types in the Chairman’s Room collectively groaned before returning to the fancy booze and fancy party pies while talking to very fancy people.
That included Minister Conroy, who was last seen locked in conversation with members of the PNG ministry.
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