Australian Rules Football

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Welcome back sports fans!

I come to you with another exciting sporting event that is unique to Australia. The sport, which is most popular in Melbourne, is best described as a form of rugby where the ball is advanced either by kicking to teammates, punching the ball from your own hand, or running with it while you bounce it on the ground every so often. There is a lot of running involved and the players are much smaller than the traditional rugby players. Points are scored by kicking the ball through a set of 4 uprights at your opponents end of the field (through the middle uprights 6 pts, through the outer uprights, 1 pt.).

Our good friend Bob Potter was nice enough to let me use his Sydney Swans season ticket as he had something more exciting to do and I soaked in the action at the Sydney Cricket Ground while Heidi went out with the girls to watch the National Rugby Union match at the pub. I was thankful to all of Bob's friends at the game who patiently described the nuances of the game and I am excited to learn more. I was impressed by the accuracy of the long distance kicks these players were able to complete to eachother and even though Sydney lost to a tough Adelaide team, they seem to be poised to make a run in the upcoming Premiership.

Enjoy the few pictures I took as our normal photographer was not on site at the time, but you get an idea of how enormous the grounds are. We had excellent tickets right at midfield in the first section and when the action was in the far corners it was extremely difficult to distinguish... should make for some exciting days during the summer watching cricket!

Matt

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Photos

Sydney Cricket Ground 1
One half of the field!

Sydney Cricket Ground 2
... the other half.

Sydney vs. Adelaide
Sydney in red and white, Adelaide in black and yellow

Kicking downfield
notice teammates downfield jockeying for position to recieve the punt

4 Posts
The real points are scored by kicking through the two middle posts and unfortuanately sydney could only get it to go through the outer posts (a ball that hits one of the inner posts only counts as a single point).