Australian Football

For my Australia today class, one assignment is to attend an Australian football game (Footy) and reflect on it in a paper about culture. This paper gave me an extra excuse to go to a footy game, which I have been dying to go to since I have gotten to Australia. My friends and I here have watched a footy game on TV and it is incredibly different from any American sports, but the best way to describe it is that it is a combination of rugby and football. The sport began in the state Victoria, but since then it has expanded to the entire country, but most of the teams are centered in Victoria. There are 22 men on the team, but only 18 are allowed on the field at once, and the field is a giant oval. There are no cheerleaders, timeouts and the clock counts up, similarly to soccer. Because there are no time outs, trainers and coaches can run onto the field at anytime to talk to players and tend to their needs. We all found this bizarre that you randomly see coaches running out in the middle of the game. Another very different quality was that the umpires were very involved in the game and need to be equally as physically fit as the players. They bounce the ball to start off the game and bounce it in when it goes out. I feel as though certain umpires could be kind of biased, but the game yesterday it didn't appear any were.
The rules are also hard to follow. Tackles are allowed (no padding is worn), interceptions are common, and if the ball is intercepted by a player who jumps in the air for it, they get a free kick at a goal. There are also three goal posts. The center one is worth 6 points under certain conditions (conditions such as distance away from the posts, the way they score, as in a kick, pass, run and the height the ball goes through the posts), while the others are worth one. The players also can't carry the ball for more that 15 meters, and must bounce it if they don't intend to pass. The games can end up being pretty high scoring as well.

Etihad Stadium is the home field for many Melbourne teams, and this is where we traveled to yesterday. It was an easy commute into Melbourne and a four minute walk from the train station to the stadium. North Melbourne Kangaroos were hosting the Collingwood Magpies. North Melbourne is who I am seeing with Claire and her dad in May, so I figured I should root for them and buy apparel for the Kangaroos. Collingwood is ranked second in the league though, and apparently they have a very high fan base, compared to North Melbourne who does not have many followers. Scarves representing your team are huge, and jerseys are expensive, so I bought a scarf for North Melbourne. All of my friends I went with bought scarves for Collingwood, so I decided I would be the lone person rooting for the underdog. I admit, I did cave in and buy a Collingwood baseball hat because I really liked the style of it. Each team has their little says, for example, Collingwood is "Side by Side" and North Melbourne is "Ignite". The hat I bought says, Side by Side on it, and it did come in handy when the sun came out. It looked as though I was suffering from identity crisis though rooting for both teams, but I would only cheer for the Kangaroos.

We bought general admissions seats, which were not bad at all. For 20 dollars we could see everything and got seats together. Overall, the game was fun, and we began catching onto the rules as the game progressed. The sun even came out and warmed us up half way through the game! North Melbourne got killed, but this was expected. Poor underdogs.

 Etihad Stadium

 North Melbourne Kangaroos

 Abby, Julia, Lilly, Lauren, Jenn