CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
The Magic Round, which sees every NRL match of the round played in Brisbane across one weekend, was first held in 2019 before taking a sabbatical during COVID and eventually returning this year.
The weekend’s fixtures have been deemed a runaway success – with about 25,000 interstate visitors pumping more than $20 million into the local economy.
The state government announced on Sunday that it had reached terms with the NRL to keep the event in Queensland next year, with Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk now calling on the NRL to make the rugby league festival a permanent fixture for The Brown Snake.
However, even with Brisbane tourism and hospitality sector cheering the influx of business and much needed foot traffic – there is a limit to how much rugby league a person can ingest in the space of 48 hours.
With a double header on Friday night, a triple header of Saturday and another triple header on Sunday – experts agree that eight full matches of NRL is too much for one person.
Unless that person is Acacia Ridge car detailer, Paddy Ingham.
The 35-year-old NRL diehard says he’d been saving up for Magic Round for months – and it seems he certainly made the most of it.
From Friday through to Sunday evening, Paddy would have spent more time seated at Suncorp than he did outside of it.
He even went as far as booking a room within walking distance to the stadium at the Roma street Holiday Inn – so that he could keep his commute to a minimum.
Close friends and family of the say they thought he was joking when he was offering a spare ticket for each three days.
“Jesus” said Paddy’s close workmate, Dwane.
“Eight matches?!”
“That’s 640 minutes of mid-season rugby league”
“and I’m gonna say at last 500 of those minutes was a bottom eight standard of football”
Paddy’s misso, Angela (33, travel agent) says this might be getting a bit beyond cute.
“I thought he was going away for a boys trip” she says.
“He was half an hour up the road smashing hotdogs and midstrength beer for three days”
However, despite the criticism, Paddy stands by his little staycation in Milton, and the 1200 photos now saved in his iPhone.
“I’m going again next year” he says.
“It was awesome haha”
