Footy, Football, Rugby and Gridiron.

This past weekend I watched the final 20 minutes of the Wallabies-All Blacks rugby game at a local bar. I was talking to a couple of guys from Sydney who were in town for a mountain biking trip. I asked them if this was a big game and they seemed to think so. The game being played was for the Bledsoe Cup, an annual competition between the national Rugby Union teams of Australia and NZ. I was later told that State of origin rugby league game would actually be larger in scale. What the heck is state of origin??

Sports in Australia are very regional and much different from New Zealand. The national sport in NZ is rugby, technically known as rugby union. Rugby union is most likely the sport Americans can identify as “Rugby.” Each Team fields 15 Players and the game is full of rucks and scrums. The front line players are large burly dudes that resemble NFL offensive lines. Many players are missing their front teeth. The game has a slower pase and each team can hold the ball for an unlimited amount of time, but a fair number of changes in possession take place because of game strategy. The other form or rugby played is rugby league, known as 'Football.' A rugby league team fields 13 players on each side and the teams have to kick the ball to the other side after five tackles, very similar to the 4^th down punt in American football. The same sized ball and is used for both union and league. The goalposts for each game are are the same and look about the same as American football's goal posts. Rugby league is likely the most popular sport nationwide. Historically football(league) is played by professionals and rugby(union) is amateur. According to Victorians, the oldest football code in the word, written in 1859 is Australian Football, or 'footy.' Footy teams have 18 players on each side. I have absolutely no clue what the rules are in the game except the ball can be bounced on the grass as the player runs down field. Players are running, jumping and kicking all over the place, think of basketball on grass. American football does have a solid following in Australia as well, but is known not as football but as 'gridiron.' I have a workmate who claims to be a Cincinnati Bengals fan and I have no idea why. He says that his football(rugby league) team he supports are called the West Tigers and have the same colors as the Bengals. That is as good as any reason I suppose. It is very confusing to keep everything straight.

When I arrived in Melbourne I snuck into an Aussie Rules game between the Sydney Swans and Essendon Bombers. I was totally clueless to what was going on. I did know that Essendon was loosing badly to the point that many of the local supporters were leaving the stadium before halftime. (Essendon is a suburb of Melbourne) I took a seat in one of the upper decks of Etihad Stadium so I could have a good view of the field. The layout of the playing grid was an oval with four posts at either end. Two of the posts in the middle are taller than the two outer posts. I later learned that the aim of the game is to kick the ball in the opposing teams taller goal posts. If the player misses, and hits the ball inside the outer posts, then he is awarded one point, essentially a small reward for missing the inner posts. The game I attended was entertaining to the finish with Essendon attempting a comeback and loosing by four points. At the conclusion, all of the Sydney supporters in the lower bowl waved their rend and white striped flags and sang the Notre Dame Fighting Irish victory march, yes the same Notre Dame “cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame” fight song rhythm! They totally stole the Indiana's school song! Or did they?...after all Australian footy predates the first American Football game between Rutgers and Princeton by ten years.

The next week I snuck into the Wallabies-Wales Rugby Union game at the same stadium. The mood was somber. The colosseum was only half as full as it was for the footy game only one week earlier. Rugby union is a much slower game and the action only comes in bursts. Its most likely the most similar to American football. I had plenty of room for my legs to stretch as I watched the Wallabies trade kicks with the Welsh and win by one point. I would say with conviction that the Welsh supporters were much more vocal than the locals. I can only assume that there are many Welsh expats living in Australia, and I'm sure a few die hard fans made the trip the the three game series. Security was much more present during the Wallibies game, I had to find a used ticket to get inside as opposed to the previous week when I walked right in without being checked.

Melbourne is home to the AFL or Australian Football league. 9 of the 18 teams in the AFL are based in Melbourne which should make no surprise that the former name of the league is the Victorian Football League. The NRL or National Rugby League is rugby played by rugby league rules. NRL is more popular in New South Wales and Queensland and the AFL rules the roost in Victoria. Super Rugby is the professional version of rugby union with teams in Australia, NZ and South Africa, but I have yet to find an Aussie who could even name a team. One of the post popular games of the year is the football 'State of Origin' State of Origin is when NRL players get divided up into teams representing their home states, not their professional teams. The matches are held once a year and are the hottest tickets in town. The competition is between Queensland and New South Wales. Victoria and the other states never stand a chance, they don't even field a team. Queensland has won for the past 7 years over NSW, making for some grumpy Sydneyers.

When I moved to Nowra in NSW it became very apparent that football(league) is referred to as 'footy' here and footy(AFL) is known as Gay F L. My workmates told me that any sport with a team named after a Swan must not be taken seriously. They said that AFL players are afraid to get hit and are a bunch of sissys. Because I live in NSW I did not ask them about the opinion of the current state of origin series, which may make them more upset. Australian football at large is still not as confusing to me as it is when I try to explain gridiron(American football) to my workmates. They just think that anyone wearing an American jersey is part of a gang or something like that. I try very hard to explain all the strategy involved in the game and they just shake their heads, and try to convince me that any Australian football is much more hardcore and tougher, even the so called gay F L. They reason that because only what they have seen on tv or you tube. Which I guess is a fair assessment. I then showed my workmates videos of Terry Tate office linebacker and they were very quiet for several days.

All this is getting very confusing for me, especially when I want to watch gridiron(NFL) and I have to get up at 4am on a Monday to do just that. I guess the world is really upside down down under. The game(rugby union) this past weekend was a tie between the All Blacks and Wallibies, which must have a national day of mourning in NZ but was in the back page of the papers here. In the front page: speculation on next year's state or origin rosters.