Aussie Rules Football

So consider this the first in a series of bloggings about the various new and exciting sports we get to watch here in Singapore. We get Aussie and European TV, there are Cricket and Polo clubs here, and we are going to try and see it all.

Last night, with Erin in Kuala Lumpur ("KL") on business, I had a nice quiet Friday night at home waiting for her return (eagerly, of course). As I get home, and watch Baseball Tonight on DVR, I flip through the TV Guide and find "Friday Night Football" on the Australia Network. I had already watched Robinson Cano's party at Yankee Stadium earlier in the day, so, of course, I ordered pizza and settled in for the game between the West Coast Eagles and the Essendon Bombers (a/k/a the Dons). First of all, while watching the first quarter, I had to read the full wikipedia article on the sport, because I had no idea what was going on. Part Rugby, part soccer, part American Football I guess is the best way to describe it.

First of all, they start the game, and every restart with a tip-off type start where the referee bounces the ball (the footy) as high as he can off the center of the field and 3 or 4 members of each team run to the middle and jump to secure control. More entertaining than any basketball tipoff you have ever seen. You can score either by kicking the footy through the uprights in the air, or getting the footy through the wider uprights by any means necessary. So the trick is to get the footy to one of your good kickers where they are close enough to get an open kick towards the uprights. To facilitate this, unlike in rugby, if you cleanly catch the footy off a teammates foot, you get a free-kick.

The West Coast Eagles have this player, who seems to be a rookie, who looks a lot like Adrian Peterson, and they would continually just give him the footy and let him run because no one could tackle him.

The other entertaining part is when you score a 6-point touch, the referree makes this very serious looking signal with both arms at a 90-degree angle pointing to the field with one finger. I am sure that Aussies think NFL referees look idiotic making a touchdown symbol too, but this is pretty entertaining.

In the end, the game wasnt all that close, the Eagles won 15.11.101 - 11.12.78. Thats 15 6-point touches, and 11 1-point scores equaling 101 points (why they break it down like that, I have no idea).

Next time...Asian 5 nations Rugby Finals, live and in-person from Singapore.

All in all, a pretty cool little Friday night.