By Greg Stutchbury
WELLINGTON, July 4 (Reuters) - A sea of Hurricanes jersey-wearing fans were filling Wellington's bars and filtering towards the city's waterfront stadium as excitement built for Saturday's first all-New Zealand Super Rugby final since 2006.
Several thousand fans from the South Island had also flooded into the New Zealand capital to support the Otago Highlanders against the hometown Hurricanes, who are hosting the final for the first time with both sides seeking a maiden title.
Fans were mixing freely in the central city though the occasion had drawn one fan from Christchurch with no allegiance to either side but keen to taste a little schadenfreude.
Wearing a Canterbury Crusaders T-shirt, Chris, who declined to give his last name, gloated about his own team's seven Super Rugby titles and said he had travelled to Wellington hoping to witness a Hurricanes loss.
"I've come up from Christchurch to see the biggest choke since their last biggest choke," he told Reuters in reference to the Hurricanes and Wellington provincial side's failures to win a final since 2000.
New Zealand's capital had been slowly building to their weekend party, though an early indicator of how intense the interest would be came on Monday when all 26,000 general sale tickets were snapped up in 59 seconds.
Wellington Rugby released a further 5,000 tickets on Wednesday, prompting a queue of several hundred metres developing the evening before they went on sale at a temporary venue outside Te Papa, New Zealand's National Museum.
Several hundred fans also attended a 'meet the public' session at a local bar on Friday, while shops, offices and cafes throughout the central city were adorned with Hurricanes flags, posters and yellow and black balloons.
Sports retailers reported they had sold out of replica jerseys early in the week, while local authorities set up a fanzone on the city's waterfront for people to watch the game on a jumbo screen.
While both sides are chasing their maiden Super Rugby title, the Hurricanes have been battling with their emotions in the past month after the death of former flanker Jerry Collins in a car crash in France on June 5.
"The coaches say all week that the team which is the hardest is the team that is going to win this competition," flanker Brad Shields, who wears Collins' number six jersey, told Fairfax Media.
"And that's what JC was, he was a hard man, so if we can be like that then we've got no problems.
"We just want to do it for him... and that adds to the emotion and motivation." (Editing by John O'Brien)