Aussie Rules Football aka Australian Football aka Aussie Rules aka Football aka footy

A few weeks ago we went to our first Sydney Swans game as a family. The Swans play in the AFL. And if you can tell from the title of this blog they play Aussie Rules Football or any of the other countless names the Australians come up with to call the game. At first I felt silly that I couldn't keep it straight that it was all the same game, but when I looked up the Wikipedia definition and it listed all the different names that the game was called I didn't feel quite so bad. Instead I felt like saying, typical Australia, where everything has to be called something slightly different than it's original name (and I mean that in the best possible way, but it always makes me laugh when I have to sit and ponder how they come up with so many abbreviations and nicknames for the same word - some of course are logical but others are far from so!). 

Ready to cheer!

I have a ways to go before I understand all of the rules of the game but I tried to actually understand at least a little (between keeping Emma and Morgan entertained) while we took in three of the four quarters of the game. We did the classic slip out of the stadium early as the Swans were stomping on their rival for the day, Port Adelaide. Emma and Morgan both contentedly watched all the normal hubbub that takes place in a stadium for the first quarter of the game. But once we were done with our lunch about halfway through the second quarter Emma had lost her enthusiasm for the game. While it was fun to slap the noisemaker of a sign in dad's face she eventually was bored with it and dad was over it so we decided to call it a day.

I let Emma have a cheering sign/noisy clapping sign - Steve was not thrilled with my decision.

While I'm not going to bore you with all the precise rules of the game I learned here are a few of the more fun pieces of information I took away from the game, all of which I will most likely have forgotten by the time we get around to another game next year!

• They play on a massive oval-shaped cricket field, which just feels strange coming from watching mostly American football and soccer on rectangular fields growing up...
• The teams each have 18 players on the field. Talk about a whole lot of players to watch and try to figure out what each of their roles are!
• Equally chaotic in my mind was the number of umpires and team trainers/coaches/water boys that seem to be allowed on the field at a time. I had no idea what all of them were doing...
• I love it when the ball goes out of bounds! They throw it in backwards over the head!
• The players can use any part of their body to move the ball up the field but there are rules on how they can move the ball with each body part. Still I don't understand most of them because it seemed like they could do anything they wanted!
• More important than learning what the players could do I needed to ask what they could not do. It seemed like everything was allowed in comparison to a more regimented American football game. While perhaps not as violent as rugby, it is far from a game for the faint-hearted player. There were no players flopping and flailing their bodies like we're accustomed to seeing at so many other sporting events, where the players become like actors dramatically playing out their tiny bump with their opponent hoping for a penalty to be called. If you're playing footy you better just toughen up and keep playing!

Ready for the match to start!

Terrible photo, but the field is massive!

Lucky for Emma she got to hold up this sign a lot!