Australian Sports Vol. 1: Aussie Rules Rules!

By Guest Blogger William Stone:

For those who think the title of this blog is a misprint, let me clarify – Australian Rules Football, or Aussie Rules, or simply “The Footy,” is far and away the favored (side note, my spell check is telling me I’ve misspelled “favored”… apparently it favors “favoured”) sport in Melbourne. And since Kim knows nothing of sports, I thought I’d take over this part of the blogging.

The Australian Football League (AFL) is the sport’s governing body and consists of sixteen teams around Australia. This may not seem like very many until you consider that only twenty million people even live on this vast continent. That’s like if a natural disaster wiped out the entire population of the continental U.S. except for the state of Florida, and then those people dispersed over all forty-eight states. And for you New Yorkers and Chicagoans out there who think having two professional teams competing in the same sport makes you special, Melbourne, a city of 3.2 million people has NINE professional Aussie Rules teams. With a team from Geelong, a mere hour’s drive, bringing the total to a nice even ten. Each team claims a different Melbourne suburb, and these suburbs aren’t exactly like Alpharetta to Atlanta, or Murfreesboro to Nashville. If you spent thirty minutes on a tram here in Melbourne, you could see Richmond, home of the Tigers, Carlton, home of the Blues, St. Kilda, home of the Saints, and Hawthorn, home of the Hawks. In Atlanta, this would equate to having the Buckhead Popped Collars play against the Midtown Alternative Lifestyle. Or the Downtown Atlanta Glock 9s play against the Little 5 Points Grunge. Anyway, I think you get the idea. Teams from Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, and Perth make up the rest of the sixteen.

From what I can tell, “The Footy” seems to be a combination of American Football and “The Rugby.” (In fact both participating punters in the NFC championship game were former Aussie Rules players, thus Ben Graham of the Cardinals became the first Aussie to play in the Super Bowl.)

Here’s a typical exchange between two Melburnians... notice the terminology:

“So, are you into the Rugby, then?”

“It’s great, but I really love the Footy!”

“What about the Gridiron (American Football)?”

“Well, I love to watch the Super Bowl, but I don’t know what the hell is going on! And why do they wear all those pads?”

Honestly, I’m surprised the connection between Aussie Rules players and “the Gridiron” wasn’t made sooner. The way these guys punt the ball through the goal posts is uncanny, and being a punter in the NFL comes with the added benefit of having people block for you so that you’re not constantly getting creamed. Don’t get me wrong, American Football is the greatest sport in the world, and most every other player is constantly in danger of getting creamed, but the punter has more or less a free pass.

Just a catastrophe waiting to happen...

So, what are the rules of this most unique sport? Well, despite the name of the game itself implying that there actually are rules, I can’t seem to figure out what they are. It seems you can advance the ball however you want, the opposing team can tackle you however they want, and you can try and kick the ball to a team mate or trough the goal posts whenever you want. Maybe in a subsequent post I can provide slightly more detail. Or, if I never understand it, I’ll just copy and paste the Wikipedia page.

These goal posts remind me a little bit of what I expect a quidditch field to look like

Stay tuned for the next episode: Cricket… another sport I don’t understand, barely seems like a sport, but still has an unnaturally large following!