It’s louder here

Saturday night in Melbourne, we decided to go to an Aussie Rules footy game. It was a very interesting experience, interesting but really good fun too.

After rushing to the game, we bought the tickets on the door at a very reasonable price :-) The stadium was massive (ETIHAD ‘Telstra’ Dome), basically they play on a cricket field sized pitch, that night they had the dome covered over. It wasn’t even a quarter full but there was still more atmosphere than any of the rugby games we went to see in NZ. I guess that Aussies are just louder...

The game was between the North Melbourne ‘Roos’ and ‘The Power’ Port Adelaide. The intros were awesome. Both teams had theme tunes which you’d have to hear to believe – think Waltzing Matilda crossed with a children’s TV show theme. ‘The Power’ came running on and had to break through their banner on to the pitch, but they struggled to get through the paper, so it wasn’t quite as impressive as it should have been :-) Really funny, and all to The Power’s theme tune, brilliant.

The game got under way and we were concerned that we wouldn’t be able to follow the rules (I mean I still struggle with rugby union). As it turned out we shouldn’t have worried, the rules were easy, so easy even an Aussie could follow em. To summarise, do anything you want to get the ball through the sticks at the other end. The only two things to know are:
1. if you get tackled and held and don’t let go of the ball the umpire will take it off you throw it at the ground, hard, and its every man for himself.
2. If you catch the ball from a kick on the full ‘no bounce’ you can’t be tackled if you stop, so you get a free kick of your own, wherever you are.

Easy.

I think this sport is the only one where the umpires take such an active role, I mean they were even warming up with the ball (there were 8 umpires) their duties mainly revolved around restating the game if the ball was held (as mentioned before) and this was hilarious at the time, doing the throw ins if the ball went out of play. They would stand with their back to the field and lozz it as high and far over their head as possible back into the game, brilliant.

We didn’t realise how long the games lasted, if we had, we would have brought a picnic like the family next to us, after four quarters of 30 minutes each, plus 2-5 minutes of injury time (See Note A), with intervals between each quarter, our one chocolate bar was being strictly rationed. Even though the game lasted so long it was surprisingly close. North Melbourne did run away with it at one point but somehow The Power came back into it in the final quarter, really close at the end one ½ goal in it final store 116-121 to the Roos (home team). A roar of celebration and the comic theme tune once again, thoroughly entertaining.

Note A
Injury time seamed to be a random number between 1 and 5, because the game never stops, not for injuries or fights, when a fight broke out at one point between 4 players the ump just took the ball off them and did a bounce throw in, game on. The 4 fighting just got on with it.