With Australia on the verge of a fresh AFL season, our Aussie in New York, David Saunders, brings you all you’ll need to know about this exciting brand of football in yet another edition of Sports Explained.
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March is an exciting time for most American sports fans. College basketball is culminating with a flurry of conference championship deciders, NBA fans are gearing up for playoffs (OK, Knicks and Timberwolves fans, you’re gearing up for the draft … or next season … or divine intervention … anything) and for hockey fans, the Stanley Cup playoffs are fast approaching. On top of that, Major League Soccer is up and running, spring training baseball is underway and most of us are discovering places in Florida we’d never heard of as Major League teams work on their suntans and curve balls, hopes high for the coming season’s grind.
Outside this bubble of North American sporting endeavor, in far off Australia, the summer pastime of cricket is playing out a seemingly interminable season climax with the quadrennial World Cup tournament, ready to cede its place in the national psyche for the next six months to football.
That’s Australian Rules football, “Aussie Rules” or simply “footy” — as it’s known locally.
Some of you familiar with obscure cable programming at strange hours of the night may have come across this phenomenon. Or you may be Australian, in which case you might want to go and read something on the Good Men Project as I’ll be preaching to the converted. For those of you not familiar — or who have viewed said televisual spectacle with a level of bemusement not experienced since 8th grade algebra class — I will attempt to explain what on earth is going on.
This game is like no other. Perhaps the closest comparison is with Ireland’s jaunty and elegant Gaelic football. However, even that’s of limited use to the uninitiated. Yes, they’re both codes of football and both involve a lot of kicking and high scores. But Gaelic football and Aussie Rules are alike in the same way as Nascar racing and velodrome cycling: while both involve wheels, the latter pits the sleek and wiry against each other; the former is loud, muscular and dangerous.
So what’s going on out there?
In more than 40 years of watching, playing and writing about Aussie Rules I have encountered many non-natives who’ve watched the game. Broadly speaking, they are fascinated, impressed and perplexed in equal measure.
The most common observation is that it looks like there are very few, if any, rules; kind of anarchy with a ball. Indeed, it may seem to the outsider like a game that was thought up by a bunch of guys who’d had a few beers one night in the pub. Which is pretty much what happened, more than 150 years ago, when local sports champion Thomas Wills and a few like-minded fellows in colonial Melbourne congregated at a hotel in 1857 and drafted the laws of a code that predates the written constitution of most other forms of football.
The indigenous football code has flourished from these origins into Australia’s premier spectator sport, with professional games regularly drawing more than 50,000 to stadiums around the country. The Grand Final, the “Super Bowl” of Australian Rules, attracts a crowd of 100,000 to the Melbourne Cricket Ground each year, with millions watching the live telecast.
To give NFL fans some sense of perspective, an AFL ground is up to 185 meters long and 155 meters wide. That’s roughly twice the width, and about one-and-a-half times the length of an American football field. It’s big out there. Each team has 18 onfield players with four players on the bench who are interchangeable.
The object of the game is to score by passing the ball via foot or by way of a handpass — involving a fist punching the ball out of the opposite hand (as opposed to throwing it, which is prohibited) — to players in a scoring position. There are four posts at each end flanked by lower posts either side. A goal is scored when the ball is kicked through the two taller posts without being touched which gives the scoring team six points. If the ball is touched or goes between one of the big posts and the lower ones to the side, a team is awarded one point.
Physical contact plays a big part. Players may tackle each other — between the shoulders and waist — either by retarding movement with their arms or bumping. Head contact is outlawed and has become more rigorously policed in recent years in an effort to reduce the risk of long-term damage to players’ health. Bear in mind that players don’t wear helmets, or much other protective gear at all beyond a mouthguard.
If you’re tackled, you must dispose of the ball, either by kicking or handpassing, or be penalized for holding the ball.
Players can run with the ball, as long as it is bounced on the turf every 15 meters, a skill in itself.
Why would I want to watch that?
Recently I wrote about my admiration for American football and the spectacle of the Super Bowl, a game where pin-point precision blends with elite athleticism and brute strength; those moments when a wide receiver latches onto a 40-yard throw by a quarterback who is being descended upon by a bunch of guys that look like bikies whose clubhouse just got egged and their Harleys pushed over. If you dig this kind of thing in sport, you’ll love the AFL. Brute strength and precision are prevalent, generating some unique and spectacular highlights.
There is goal scoring from ridiculous angles:
There is artistry in the air, known as “marking”:
There is courage bordering on reckless disregard for one’s own well-being:
And there is excitement…all the time:
Some good news for curious American sports fans:
There is no offside rule; offensive and defensive players are on the field at the same time. Whilst players have nominal positions and can broadly be divided into backs, midfielders and forwards, modern tactics have blurred these traditional distinctions, with all players expected to switch from defense to offense as possession of the ball dictates.
There are no special teams. Whilst each player has a particular role, every single player is entitled to kick for goal, contest or tackle at any time. In other words, there isn’t one dude on a team getting paid millions to come on five times a game and kick the ball into the roof. Everyone is a designated kicker.
There are no timeouts. The game is played in four 20-minute quarters, with time added on at the umpire’s discretion for injuries, and when there is a score. Imagine that: a whole game played without stopping to discuss tactics – that’s just done on the run from the coach’s box (watch the guys in fluorescent uniforms running on and off the field delivering messages to the players). So the game is over in less than three hours including quarter intervals. Maybe the beer ads aren’t as good as the US, and maybe they don’t have enough time (or money) to surround Katy Perry with adorable sharks (actually, what a great idea for an Australian sporting event!), but hey, you’ve got an extra couple of hours to do stuff that doesn’t involve watching commercials while you wait for the players to get out of their huddles…again.
No helmets, no padding. Yep, full-body contact and it’s just 36 guys and their mouthguards. Granted, there are horrific knee and shoulder injuries and a similar debate about concussion to that in the NFL is raging. The AFL to its credit has recently sought to minimize the risk of head injuries by altering contact rules. On the positive side, players don’t use their helmets to become human battering rams and you can see their faces.
For the easily distracted among you, some bad news:
There are no cheerleaders. Over the years, some good old American razzmatazz that fans didn’t know they needed has crept into coverage of the game: extravagant pre-match and halftime entertainment; PA announcers stating the bleeding obvious during games; overpriced beer etc.
Oddly though, in a society inwardly and outwardly perceived to be overly macho and prone to sexism, cheerleaders haven’t caught on in a big way. Despite attempts by a handful of the 18 professional clubs to introduce them in the last 35 years, it has never lasted. Australian football fans would like to think this reflects a level of sophistication and taste that is not always considered synonymous with antipodean culture, or perhaps a more enlightened view of — and respect for — women than other nations. This may be true. On the other hand, it may be overstating the case, and we just haven’t been that bothered about it, believing the game’s attraction speaks for itself without tacky sexing up.
So there you have it: a uniquely Australian game with thrills and spills, high scores and passionate fans. If your NBA season is through, your NHL allegiances have done their dash, or you know that baseball is just going to provide you with six months of misery, maybe it’s time to plum the extremities of ESPN for a bit of Aussie Rules footy action. It may just change your life.
Want more? Check out a brief history of Australian Rules football.
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Photo Credit: AP/File
now I get it! Great read.