I watched the Super Bowl for the first time and here’s what I thought – Nicky Rennie

Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs reacts in the fourth quarter while playing against the Philadelphia Eagles during Super Bowl LIX. Photo / Getty Images

Well, I did something I’d never done the other day and, to be honest, won’t ever do again.

I watched Super Bowl LIX. The first thing I had to work out was what LIX was. Duh me. Roman numerals for 59.

All I really knew about the Super Bowl was it was meant to be super.

Well, trust me when I say that’s four hours of my life I’ll never get back.

What a circus of a game that is. Both of my brothers went and studied at university in the USA on football (soccer) scholarships when they were 18.

One of my brothers thought watching American football was like watching paint dry, while the other went to work to learn all of the rules so he could better understand the game.

By his own admission, it took him quite some time. However, he mastered all of the rules and also watched the game on Monday (our time), and was able to try to explain what the heck was going on. We were still none the wiser, really.

I thought I’d at least try to watch it to see what all of the fuss was about.

It’s very difficult to watch a game that stops and starts as often as that one did.

Just when you think something exciting is about to happen, it stops.

Then it starts again for another couple of minutes and then it stops again.

The whole time I was watching these sportsmen in their battle armour, I was comparing them to the All Blacks.

For a start, our entire team is on the field at any one time and the game is played for two 40-minute halves.

We don’t have an offensive team and a defensive team – we just have a team.

Our national game doesn’t stop for commercials, there is no half-time show and, quite frankly, I think they have more mongrel than all of these overpaid players combined.

I thought shoulder pads went out in the 80s. However, I soon learned I was wrong.

These players wore so much padding, they looked like Mrs Doubtfire.

The reason I kept comparing them to our national rugby team was that I didn’t think that any of them looked like they would be able to play a full game as an All Black because, in my humble opinion, Kiwi men and women are much tougher.

They put their bodies on the line without helmets, tight pants or warpaint.

They get hit and they get up again, over and over until the final whistle blows.

The only two players I knew of in this game were Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes.

The only reason I knew about them is because they seem to be all over social media.

I’ll be honest and say I respect Taylor Swift as an artist and as a person, and I know she is Travis Kelce’s partner.

Imagine my horror when one of the main stories to come out of this debacle was that when the camera focused on Swift in the audience, the crowed booed her.

Haters gonna hate, but what the hell did she do wrong apart from support her partner at this game?

Then I dug a little deeper and found the reason the fans of the Kansas City Chiefs now dislike her so much is they think she has distracted him from playing as well as he can and, in a sense, almost blamed her for their loss.

Well done, America, that’s very mature.

It became clear from the outset the Philadelphia Eagles had this game in the bag. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to work that out, but the process to get to the end of the game was nauseatingly laborious.

Be still my beating heart – there is still hope.

The half-time performance at the Super Bowl is meant to be a show-stopper.

Yeah, nah. I had visions of Beyonce, Prince, Michael Jackson and various other artists in the past who were incredible.

The year it was Kendrick Lamar (who?). Now I’m really showing my age, because I thought it was a lacklustre pile of drivel that was enough to put even this New Zealander to sleep.

“Let this be over so we can get back to another two hours of ‘static sport’,” I thought.

You may have gathered by now that I was underwhelmed with the Super Bowl.

The one thing that is supposed to be amazing about it is that in the commercial breaks, various American companies pay squillions to air their sometimes hilarious TV commercials.

I thought we might get those to have a break in the monotony. Nope. If you wanted to see those, you had to go to social media.

It’s fair to say I won’t be troubling a Super Bowl game anytime soon.

Over-promising and under-delivering is something I detest, and this had it in spades. Keep your game, America. I’ll have the All Blacks any day.

Whanganui-based Nicky Rennie returned to her home town in 2018 while celebrating three decades in broadcasting. She has written a column for the Whanganui Chronicle since 2021.