Breakers fan stoked thundersticks will be there on Friday

New Zealand Break­ers fan Matt Balm­forth is stoked that the thun­der­sticks will be there in time for Friday’s semi final at Vec­tor Are­na.

A Ports of Auck­land work­er for the past 14 years, Matt Balm­forth is a close fol­low­er of the Break­ers, and will be at Fri­day night’s game against the Townsville Croc­o­diles.

“The thun­der­sticks can be bloody loud at times but it’s all part of the atmos­phere,” he said.

“I’m pleased KiwiRail will help get them there in time.”

But Matt said this delay shouldn’t have hap­pened in the first place, and he wants to see the Ports of Auck­land back mov­ing freight again for busi­ness­es and groups like the Break­ers.

Matt is one of near­ly 300 Ports of Auck­land work­ers who the com­pa­ny has locked out indef­i­nite­ly.

He says all he and his work­mates want to do is get back to work with a fair employ­ment agree­ment and get the Ports up and run­ning again.

“The Break­ers shouldn’t have had this extra stress.  It was total­ly avoid­able, if Ports man­age­ment hadn’t pushed ahead with its attempt to dis­miss all of us and bring in con­trac­tors.”

Matt said he hoped oth­er Auck­land busi­ness­es would send a mes­sage to Ports man­age­ment to end the lock­out and get the Port run­ning again for Auck­land.