gAyFL

Rubgy/football is a confusing concept in Australia as they play both rugby league, rugby union and also Aussie rules. Rugby league and union are both called rugby, but Aussie rules is called footy, with football being called soccer. You can imagine that for an English person this is very confusing!

Anyway, Aussie rules football is a very popular game here; it is a variant of football/rugby played only in Australia. 

It's played between two teams of 18 players on a large oval pitch (usually a cricket pitch) with a rugby-shaped ball. The object of the game is to score by passing the ball between the goal posts, with the highest score being awarded for kicking it between the middle two posts. The primary ball-handling methods are kicking and handballing, and obviously running with it too. 

We have been planning for a long time to go and watch a match and luckily this weekend the Sydney Swans, our local team who play at the Sydney Cricket Ground, were playing against North Melbourne in the AFL (or gay-F-L as Dave and his friends like to call it due to, yes, the gayness of the players - good for girls watching though because they wear tiny little shorts and are all generally pretty stacked and good looking!) premiership, which is the professional level of Aussie rules.  

Matches are played in 20 minute quarters of the ball being in play. These, however, are usually much longer because more often than not, the players are having fisty-cuffs with each other. A game on average lasts for around two and a half to three hours so it's a good opportunity to get together with friends, have some beers and watch a good game.

The match was really great actually - after Dave had explained to me what was happening, it was really easy to follow, much more accessible than rugby union, which can be very confusing if you don't know all the rules in detail. 

I'd go so far as to say in fact that I'm a little sad we didn't make more of Aussie rules and go and watch a few more games. A nice way to spend an afternon....!