Rugby 2011

Celebrations mostly well behaved

10:00 am on 24 October 2011

Emergency services have had a busy night dealing with the aftermath of the All Blacks' World Cup win but say most revellers were well behaved.

Tens of thousands of people flooded into central Auckland to watch the nail-biting final and police say the crowd's behaviour overall wasn't too bad.

Some 55,000 people used the central fan areas including the waterfront areas and Aotea Square.

About 25,000 people went to suburban fan zones and 41,000 walked the so-called fan trail from the central city to Eden Park.

Officials had made big changes to avoid the crush on opening night when 200,000 people filled the central city, many jammed onto the waterfront.

Police in Auckland made 100 arrests, 46 of them in the central city.

They say while there were pockets of disorder, people were mainly well behaved.

Twelve people were evicted from Eden Park and the waterfront fanzones had 41 evictions.

The Fire Service in Palmerston North was called out to four separate incidents of students setting fire to sofas.

Wellington police say their night was frantically busy, with 28 arrests.

The waterfront fan zone in the city was full to capacity of 3000 during the match.

Inspector Marty Parker says most issues were related to alcohol and disorder.

In Christchurch about 15,000 fans packed into North Hagley Park.

The police reported few problems and made only two arrests.

Senior Sergeant Gordon Spite says the tense match meant the crowd was glued to the big screen for much of the game and very well-behaved.

Six arrests were made in Dunedin where police closed down the Octagon at 10pm because it was too full.

The Fire Service says in the hour and a half after the game there were about a dozen incidents in which groups of students set fire to sofas.