Australian Rules Football Part 1

This is the first in a two-post series on Australian Rules Football, or “footy.”  Down here in Victoria footy is the most-watched, most-played sport, with something like eight of the twelve professional teams of Australia centered around Melbourne.  Supposedly the colonists wanted something to play during the winter (cricket is the summer sport) so they started playing this footy game on the cricket ovals.  In my mind I can see the founders of the sport playing a game of soccer, then one of the Aussies gets frustrated with the pace of the game so he picks up the ball and runs with it.  Another Aussie gets mad because the game of soccer was disrespected so he chases the other player down and tackles him.  And thus new sport is born.  Now this probably isn’t how it went down, but it puts a nice image in my mind.

"Put the ball down you bastard! This is soccer!"

[Clarification: This is actually a statue depicting the first documented footy game.]

We actually have a version of the game in the states, but it’s called Kill the Carrier.  The difference is we stopped playing after middle school (I have fond memories of playing off to the side during high school football games) but the Aussies never did stop playing.  To get down to details each team has 18 players spread across the oval (that’s an astounding 36 players on the field at once) who want to kick the ball (a cross between a rugby ball and a football) between the other team’s goal posts.  You can run with the ball, but every 15 meters you have to touch it—or bounce it, if you’re daring—against the ground.  To pass the ball to a teammate you have to “handball” it, which translates roughly to "punch it with a closed fist" (think one-handed volleyball bump).

They just had to be different.

You can also kick the ball to a teammate.  Kicking is preferable because, for one you can kick the ball a hell of a lot further than you can punch it, but also because of this thing called a mark.  If someone kicks the ball and it travels 15 meters (which translates to any sizeable distance in the air) without anyone else touching it and you catch the ball, you get a free kick on that spot.  This rule leads to many feats of gravity defiance around the goal posts.  Players even jump off their teammates’ backs to try and get marks.

Who the hell came up with this system?

That leads me to the goal posts.  The scoring system makes absolutely no sense, so bear with me for this one and refer to the diagram whenever necessary.  If you kick the ball between the two middle posts you get six points, but if anyone touches it, you only get one point.  If the ball goes between the outer two posts or hits a post, that’s also only one point.  In the pros a team can rack up over a hundred points.  Point system seems a little random and overcomplicated, with part soccer, part American football, part completely arbitrary, but who am I to judge.  Anyway, in the next post I’ll detail my own experiences playing footy, so stay tuned.