LAS VEGAS — No one has mastered the art of putting on a big show better than Las Vegas.
And, for the second consecutive year opening its season in Sin City, the National Rugby League was up to the task, delivering a week-long show of its own, climaxed by Saturday’s entertaining quadruple-header at Allegiant Stadium.
For the four NRL clubs who came to Vegas for the league’s second year of a five-year commitment — the Canberra Raiders defeating the New Zealand Warriors, 30-8, and the Penrith Panthers beating the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, 28-22, in the night’s finale — Saturday was about getting a result in their respective opening fixtures.
With regard to the bigger picture, though, the week was about more than the bone-bruising blows and the final scores. It was about the NRL’s effort to globalize the sport, expose it to an American audience, though much of the 45,209 in attendance was made up of Aussies, Kiwis and Brits.
As good as the “footy’’ was at Allegiant Field Saturday, the highlight of the week may have been the splashy fan fest the city put on Thursday night at Fremont Street in downtown Vegas, where some 10,000 revelers were treated to an electric red-carpet entrance by the teams, each of which gathered one-by-one on the stage and were feted.
Last year’s NRL first-time foray was a success in that, like this week, a good show was delivered and the uninitiated who watched got to witness a fast and physical game most of us in the U.S. aren’t familiar with.
This year’s go-’round was bigger and better, partially because it was smartly expanded from two to four games.
The week began with an embarrassing alcohol-induced scrap between Raiders teammates Hudson Young and Morgan Smithies inside an elevator of the team hotel. Both players were temporarily booted from the hotel. Contrition and apologies followed. But boys being boys.
Saturday’s game day began with an English Super League match in which the Wigan Warriors routed the Warrington Wolves, 48-24. Bringing the Brits into the fray was a brilliant move, because no fan base sings and parties harder than the Brits. They were heard all week up and down Vegas Strip and in every casino.
The second match featured the NRL’s Warriors and Raiders and that was followed by the Australian Jillaroos, the best women’s rugby league team in the world, annihilating England’s women’s national team, 90-4, with England scoring its only points on the final play of the match.
Adding the women’s game to the program was equally as brilliant as bringing the Brits. Because, if it’s even possible, the women’s game features even more violent collisions than the men’s game.
Early in the second half, Sarah Togatuki of the Jillaroos hit England’s Vicky Whitfield so hard with a head-on collision that Whitfield had to be carted off strapped to a stretcher and sent to the hospital. The hit would’ve made former Raiders head hunter Jack Tatum blush.
The star of the Raiders win was Xavier Savage — on and off the pitch. Savage got engaged during the week and capped that off by scoring two tries (the equivalent of touchdowns in the NFL).
It was a marathon day at Allegiant Stadium that capped an animated week with fascinating storylines on all of the teams. In Penrith, you had the most dominant team in NRL history, their version of the NFL’s Patriots and Chiefs.
“I don’t reckon there’s a club in the NRL that hasn’t got their hand up to come here, mate,’’ Raiders coach Ricky Stuart said after his team’s win. “If you want to miss out on this, you’re missing out on something very special.’’
Raiders star prop forward Joseph Tapine described the week as “unreal, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.’’
“To be out there in that atmosphere was unreal to play in America, the biggest sporting nation in the world,’’ Tapine said. “And, promoting our game is huge.’’
When the storylines were exhausted, the fans’ throats sore from singing and chanting and the long day’s matches into night was over, the same questions persisted as the NRL prepared to return to its everyday life on the other side of the world:
— Are these annual visits going to lead to a more global rugby league audience, including piquing the interest of American sports fans who are very set in their sporting ways?
— Or will this simply continue to be a cool week of pomp, circumstance and good times for those visitors to trek to Vegas for the show?
“The truth is, apart from the people of this area no one really knows this is going on,’’ Sean Rutgerson, the coach of the U.S. national rugby league team, which was visiting Vegas to experience the NRL week, told The Post. “I’m hoping it’s going to build over the next five years and get bigger and better. Maybe more people will find out about it. But it’s a big country and there’s a lot of sports here, obviously.’’
If the NRL keeps putting on the show it’s delivered the past two years, its Last Vegas week should live on.
Viva Last Vegas. Long live NRL.