The meeting point was set as the Crown hotel, about 5 minutes from the SCG. After several Coopers Pale Ale’s and Tooheys Old were enjoyed as breakfast beers, the topic turned to smuggling of alcohol into the ground.

Tomm went with the HipFlask on the head trick, nice how his hat covers this one up so nicely.

Next up were the Barnoculars, which were filled with 16 shots of Johnny Red. Nice.

Finally I’d opted for “I’m not happy to see you, that’s actually a HipFlask of JD tucked away in my Box Jocks”, don’t worry there’s no pictures of this one. All our efforts were in vain however as security was píss-poor. We could have just stuck half bottles in the pocket and walked straight through, they made a token effort to look in the bags and that was it!

Once at the ground and settled in our seats we grabbed some Beer and Pies. My wife found her pie a little hot so shared it with the two guys in front.

Dale Steyn fielded right in front of us for the morning session, and never once smiled. He was impressed by the worst sledge I’ve ever heard however when a guy behind us yelled out “Hey Dale, you bowled pretty well in Melbourne”. He just replied “Thanks, I did”.

Kevin Rudd was obviously watching me get in photo’s between two ladies and copied my moves. Johnny Howard was up there as well, which is probably better than him trying to bowl in the nets. Last time I saw an ex-PM at the cricket it was the reformed non-drinking Bob Hawke. It was funny how quickly he jumped off the wagon when 30,000 Aussies started chanting “Here’s to Hawkey, he’s true Blue”. Quickest skull I’ve ever seen, he can be an anchorman in my boat racing team.

Here’s McDonald after he got SMASHED in the head so hard his helmet came off. He was generally entertaining to watch, and we started a new slow-chant when he does anything of note: “RANGA RANGA RANGA RANGA”. Comedy Gold.

This is taking far longer than I’d banked on, part 2 of the review tonight maybe…