I can see the appeal of television, a medium that has inadvertently exposed me to glimpses of rugby league when I've had to flick through channels or accidentally caught a glimpse of it in a pub.

Television really takes the edge off. It means you can sit in a comfortable chair, close to a personal beer fridge, and not hear the sound of 120 kilogram blokes crashing into each other in a kind of repetitive horror.

But at Canberra Stadium on Sunday night, there was nothing to sanitise the experience for those people who still like to see the spectacle in the flesh and for me, the sports novice at the ground at the behest of my The Canberra Times sports department colleagues.

Here were the Canberra Raiders in the flesh, ready to run at and whack into the Parramatta Eels.

My grasp on the rules of this game, which I had been informed was the "greatest on earth" by several people in the lead up, was limited. I have never had much interest in sport and had never been to a Raiders game.

Any of the PE teachers that had the misfortune of having me in their classes would say I always ran from the ball in OzTag (a rugby variant with a risk assessment that made it OK for primary school). But I did pick up that the ball had to be put down behind a try line and could only be passed backwards.

On Sunday, I stood watching this professional spectacle with considerable discomfort. Could they really enjoy this organised brutality?

Was this any more than a glorified beer ad, appealing to our base human instincts for violence and complete physical domination?

But for a moment, I thought I understood what the other 16,058 people at Canberra Stadium knew to be true: the excitement, thrill, rush and joy at seeing their team score and dominant against whatever the opposition threw at them.

I felt the first pangs of excitement when Jack Wighton set himself up for a try, crossing the line with the entire Raiders fan contingent carrying on like they had seen a minor miracle.

Although I went in with no particular interest in the outcome of the game, I soon wanted a Canberra win.

But I still winced at the sight of Blake Ferguson heading off with dislocated ribs and a seriously bung nose and Joe Tapine hobbling off, eschewing the medicab to defy his twisted ankle.

The only link I have to the Raiders is we were both born in Canberra, so why should I care how they perform in a game that I don't enjoy?

Previous brushes with the Raiders have included frustration with traffic around Canberra Stadium after home games (experienced again on Sunday) and a taste of the hideous Raiders lime milk concoction which somehow passed food safety regulation.

And yet, somewhere in that green sea of die hards, I could see for a moment past the horror and wanted those players of ours to crash through against Parramatta, which they did in a 19-nil victory.

Would I pay my own money to see another Raiders game? Highly unlikely. Can I believe people take their young children to see this kind of thing? Absolutely not.

But was I alarmed at how such a short exposure to this violent escapade inspired an unashamed home team pride?

You bet I was.