Last night saw us heading into the Melbourne Cricket Ground….aka the MCG….to watch our beloved Cats take on the Hawks with some of my family…and we took Mackie along to his first match!

We headed in a bit earlier, and got a park along the Yarra River..so we had a lovely walk to the ground….that is the city behind me for those who don’t know Melbourne!

Melbourne

Which also meant we walked past Rod Laver Arena….which was very busy as Lady Gaga was performing…lots of little monsters…if you know what I mean….

Rod laver arena

And as we did the behind the scenes tour of Rod Laver, we knew where the stage entrance was…..so this is where the lady herself will have entered the venue….under lots of security and dark tinted windows…wonder what her Green Room requirements are?

Stage Door

The MCG really does look fabulous…..

MCG

And it was a lovely night to be out and about….

MCG

We were a bit spoiled, as we had tickets to the members area…the MCC…courtesy of a family member…thanks Aunty! I still have quite a few years to wait before I get a membership…

MCC

The first stop was to meet up with our group…in one of the bars…

At the bar

Then we headed to our seats to watch the end of the IC14 grand final between Ireland and Papua New Guinea…

Pano of MCG

It was a close game with PNG winning by a close margin…

IC14 Grand Final

I then wandered down to the fence to get a photo…this is Mackie and I hanging round the bench area/media area….

Mackie

The Geelong boys then ran out for their warmup….with Mackie’s namesake amoungst them…

Cats Warm Up

Then soon it was almost game time….here is the Cat’s banner, with the mascot Half Cat in front…Mackie and I had a photo with him a little while ago

Half Cat

The players ran out through the banner…yes, the Hawks had their banner, but I didn’t take a pict of that…sorry….

Banner

Our Mackie was able to watch the “real” Mackie play….number 4 in the picture below!

Game

At half time, they had some of the international men and women teams here for the IC14 play…

IC14 Games

We decided to go and hunt down a cup of tea….which took ages…but Mackie did get a picture with a Geelong great, Tom Harley….sort of…

Tom Harley

Now I have to say the first half of the game was good for us Cats supporters…..we were ahead by miles….then the Hawks came back…and sadly, this was the final score…

final score

This result has broken my streak of seeing Geelong win at every game I have been to….but no matter, the Cats are in the finals!

After waiting a while to let the crowds disperse…always amazes me how quickly the MCG can empty out…we headed back to the car…it was still quite a warm night for this time of year and thankfully, the rain held off.

Bridge

Melbourne looks great at night…

Melbourne at night

We made it past Rod Laver before all the little monsters escaped….the music was so loud from inside, I expected the roof to start lifting off!

We felt a bit sorry for all the parents waiting to pick up their kids from the concert…. but were glad to get back to the car before total chaos hit!

It was a fun night catching up with family and hanging out in the MCC…I even had no one sitting in front of me so had a perfect view!

It would have been even better if our team had won..fingers crossed they will do better when the finals start!

GO CATS!!!