Okara Park

The real draw is the scale of the place. 18,500 seats sit on a concrete gradient, but the ground remembers when it held much more. Standing room was once permitted on the embankments, a practice that allowed the attendance to reach 40,000 for a Ranfurly Shield match in 1979. That number is staggering given the city of Whangārei has a population of roughly 34,000. It also staged the first rugby league international in New Zealand in 2014, a 14–12 victory for the Kiwis over Samoa during the Four Nations tournament.

The pitch is natural grass, and it has seen everything from the 2017 British & Irish Lions tour to a split Enz concert in 1984. The career of the venue has been marked by a series of name changes. It was the Okara Park Municipal Stadium when it opened in 1965, then became Toll Stadium, and is now Semenoff Stadium. The corporate sponsors have come and gone, but the structure remains. Inside the corporate boxes, the atmosphere is quieter.