ANZ Stadium, formerly known as Telstra Stadium and Stadium Australia, was opened in March of 1999. Located 20.1 kilometres from the Sydney CBD in the suburb of Homebush, the Stadium was originally built to host the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Its capacity of 110,000 at the time made it the largest Olympic stadium ever built.
Rugby League would quickly adopt the stadium as its new home, with every Grand Final being played at the stadium since 1999. It would also become the home ground for State of Origin in New South Wales. The first Rugby League event held at the stadium was on 6 March 1999, when a then world record Rugby League crowd of 104,583 watched the round 1 double header between Newcastle v Manly and Parramatta v St George Illawarra Dragons. That record crowd would then be broken 6 months later when the Melbourne Storm took on the St George Illawarra Dragons in front of 107,999 in the 1999 Grand Final. This crowd remains the highest recorded at a Rugby League match. Since then, the stadium has seen a number of famous moments in Rugby League history. Most notably Scott Sattler’s tackle and Benji Marshall’s flick pass in the 2003 and 2005 Grand Finals respectively.
The stadium was reconfigured in 2003 to reduce the capacity to 83,500. Despite drawing criticism from many fans for compromised viewing due to the distance between the grand stands and the ground, particularly from the ends, many NRL teams continue to call the former Olympic stadium home. With the amount of use, the surface of ANZ Stadium has also come under scrutiny. With many games also failing to draw a decent crowd, the huge stadium can seem empty to the players on the park. Several teams will be hoping to establish ANZ Stadium as a home fortress for years to come.
