Rugby World Cup Road Trip: Are these tickets worth it?

What's the best way to pay for this? Photo / Matt Johnson

When someone rang last Sunday morning with two tickets for that semi-final, it seemed like a no-brainer.

Two Category C tickets. $501 each. Face value.

In many ways, you could say it was the phone call I'd been waiting for my whole life. That and maybe a text from Simon Cowell saying sorry... that he'd actually rather liked my yodelling.

But quite quickly things became more finely-balanced.

My mate sat me down (the one I was planning on treating to ticket #2). A tattooed, white-collared, rugby nut... just as keen to see Quade coop in his boots as the next bloke. We had both grown up in rugby heartlands, one playing for Waihou in Te Aroha - the other selling programmes at Athletic Park. In an age when tickets to most games (especially the top of the Millard Stand variety) barely stretched out past single-digits. Programmes themselves were a dollar.

Okay. Before this blog stalls in stingy, middle-aged talkback caller territory, here's a list of some other things your $1002 might buy you:

* An Ipad2 32 gig with wi-fi but no 3G (whatever that is)
* Return Airfare to Ho Chi Minh City
* A Star Wars Lego Death Star (24 figures included) & $50 change
* 500 x 140g packets of Pineapple Lumps (when they were on special at Whangarei Pak N save for $1.99)
* A two-week poetry course for you and THREE friends at Whitireia Polytech with Hinemoana Baker. BYO pen & paper.
* One 1994 Holden Commodore (Current bid $706) on Trade Me... reserve met and closing on Thursday at 3.32pm.

Even forgetting all the associated costs (transport, parking, $30 for four cans of beer?) and doubling the length of the match itself to 160 mins, Sunday's match still works out at over $6 a minute.

And I still wanted to go. But with the plastic already maxxed-out couldn't justify it.

Neither could my mate for free: it didn't feel right. Said paying $1000 for a semi seemed obscene. I mean, in a bad way.

There has been a lot of talk already this week about 1987 coming full circle. (I know what they mean. In 1987, I was living at my parents' house. Now, due to a longstanding rental dispute, I am living in their shed.) Yet there's no question that, for the generation who bridge that '87 Eden Park Final to this one, rugby has changed immensely. At its heart it may still be just a game. One that has now been tapped and milked like a walking, rucking ATM.

Despite the hype, the fans remain. From Whanagrei to Dunedin, I turned up outside stadiums looking for tickets. Several times, I was given them. On every other occasion - an Irishman, a Frenchman, and a South African - they were sold to me at face value. Rugby people just want other rugby people to see the game.

At these prices, how long that lasts is anyone's guess.

* Follow Matt across New Zealand at his RWC Road Trip blog or on twitter @KeaKaharoadtrip.