Fear and loathing evaporates amid NRL’s Anzac Day pageantry

I didn’t cry, not really. I certainly wasn’t blubbering. Yet in those pregnant moments after the bugler’s rendition of The Last Post had rung around the Sydney Cricket Ground and 35,273 rugby league fans had stood silently in honour of those who had fought and died for Australia and New Zealand, I thought of my grandad who had gone to New Guinea and of all the other grandads, the ones who didn’t come home. And be damned if my glasses didn’t mist up.

Earlier I’d arrived at the famous old ground for the traditional Anzac Day match between the Sydney Roosters and St George Illawarra Dragons with the same sort of joy and nagging fear I always hold for this fixture. I love the day and what it means, but worry whether it should be “celebrated” and whether all the flags and military imagery are too “American”. There are questions over the fetishisation of war and the fine line between pride and nationalism.

Then there is the language of war used in the context of a sporting event. Perhaps Keith Miller had it right with words to the effect of: cricket is a game; pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse. But then, these words are only descriptors. Your grandma may battle to walk up the shops. It’s brave to speak publicly if you’ve had a stutter. Bonecrusher and Our Waverley Star “fought a two horse war” in the 1986 WS Cox Plate. And so on.

On the field, the warm-up game was a raggedly entertaining clash (we can use “clash”, right?) between Turkey and the Australian Defence Force. There were marching bands and an explanation of what Air Force cadets do (in this case, march into the SCG carrying flags). Defence types drove by in combat vehicles and there were standing ovations. And I fretted afresh about the American influence.

Red Berets, “paratroops who undergo extensive training and compete in international competitions”, parachuted onto the field with the match ball that Billy Slater collected with a soldier of Turkish heritage. And then the players came out and everyone stood to attention before the bugler did his thing. In that moment, all the cynical takes, fear and loathing evaporated.

As for the game itself, it was pulsating. Early doors there was a huge roar when Dragons front-rower Francis Molo, the scorer of five tries in his previous 81 games, went under the posts. Teammate Moses Suli was later confused by a dummy runner – the purpose of said run – though not obstructed before a try was denied for obstruction.

A bugler plays The Last Post before the Anzac Day game at the SCG. Photograph: Mark Evans/AAP

The Dragons made a break and screamed down the right before Joseph Suaalii ripped off a show-stopping tackle that coughed up the ball. Jaydn Su’A scored a try and banged up his ankle. When Roosters winger Daniel Tupou was penalised for a high tackle on Mikaele Ravalawa the Dragons fans in the Bill O’Reilly Stand were up as one in moral outrage and high dudgeon. James Tedesco did James Tedesco things, as did Luke Keary and Joey Manu.

So it went in the grand old girl that is the SCG. And after 80 minutes of the fluid, physical, tub-thumping entertainment of rugby league played on a dry surface in daytime, man of the match Ben Hunt ripped off a 40-20 and the Dragons’ 14 held out the Roosters’ 12.

Later, at the Olympic Hotel – a pub that is equal parts Dragons and Roosters fans – I remembered another Anzac Day and a conversation I’d had with a friend recently arrived from Essex in the UK. After I explained the rules of two-up, he asked about the meaning of the day. I said it was a few things; I talked of Gallipoli and of the Diggers who tossed coins at the Somme. A young woman nearby overheard and explained it better than I had. “It’s about mateship,” she said.

And maybe that’s enough. Maybe while we’re playing footy and tossing coins and waving flags and solemnly bowing heads, it’s just a celebration of mateship. Maybe, sometimes, we can just acknowledge that we are not perfect people. And that we’re doing our best. And maybe it’s enough to shed a little tear, toss a couple of coins and enjoy the very hell out of a football game at the SCG.