Australian Football League Game (AFL): Sydney Swans (Week 12)

On Sunday, the class went on a field trip to an Australian Football League (AFL) game. The AFL is the most attended sporting league in Australia and one of the two most watched sports in Australia. I found this very surprising, because I always though that rugby would be more popular than Australian football. In the United States, all you hear about from other countries like Australia is about their rugby, and not the AFL. I did not know AFL even existed until I came to Australia.

The game was played at the Sydney Cricket Ground, where the Sydney Swans played against the Hawthorn Hawks (Hawthorn is in Tasmania). I had to take two buses to get to the stadium, but upon getting there, I noticed how nice the stadium looked from the outside. Right when I got off of the bus, there was a huge sign that said, "Sydney Cricket Ground Members' Entrance." We learned in class that to become a member of the Sydney Cricket Ground, there is a 30 year waiting list. Parents put their children on the waiting list right when they are born so when they grow up they can have a chance at rooting for their teams in the Members' Pavilion. The outside of the Member's Club and the inside was super nice and reminded me of the Victorian Era. I could picture the stadium back in the day when women wore their long dresses with their long gloves and umbrellas, and the men wore suits to go watch the sporting events . The rest of the stadium was really nice too, but the Members' Pavilion stuck out like a sore thumb.

I learned about "footy" in class, but it all made much more sense when I entered the stadium. The main difference between rugby and footy is that in footy, the playing field is a huge circle. There are also four goal posts sticking out of the ground on either end of the circle, which is the way that the teams score their points. Here is what the stadium looked like, and the four posts sticking up out of the ground:

Before the game, both of the teams had these huge blow-up banners that said something on the front of them. When the announcer said the team names, the entire team ran through the banner and tore off the bottom portion of it. I thought it was really cool how this is a tradition in AFL because each game, the team could put a new saying or something new on the banner. It also got the crowd pumped up for the game and ready to cheer on their team!

I noticed right when the game started, that the stadium was pretty full, but there was only about 33,100 people who attended the game. I compared this to American football, where anywhere between 60,000 and 100,000 people attend NFL games on a weekly basis. For footy to be Australia's most popular sport, and only have half of what Americans have was interesting to compare. I realize that America has a bigger population than Australia does, but I still would have thought that more people would support their local teams.

The game consists of four, 30 minute quarters, totaling 120 minutes of play. To start the game, the center referee took the football and threw it as hard as he could on the ground, making the football fly high into the air. This makes it fair for either team to jump up and grab the ball first. There are two teams who play at a time with 22 players (18 on the field and 4 interchanges) at a time. The main difference that I noticed right away between rugby and footy was that there was more players on the field (44 total) and that the men playing footy were a lot taller and slimmer than the rugby players. When I went to the NRL game, the men were all more stalky and their legs were huge, while the football players were all really tall. The main similarity I found was that both sports wore really short shorts!

The goal of the game is to score points by kicking the ball through the other team's goal posts. Since there are four goal posts, the way to score the most points is to kick it through the center of the four goal posts, in which your team earns 6 points. These goal posts are taller than the outside goal posts. If a team kicks it outside of the middle goal posts but between the outside goal posts, they earn 1 point, called a behind. A goal is judged by the umpires, which show if it went through by pointing both index fingers in front of him and then waving two flags above his or her head to indicate the score to the other goal umpire. A behind is signaled by pointing one finger, and waving one flag.

 Ball being scored for 6 points:

During the game, the players are allowed to position themselves anywhere on the field and use any part of their bodies to move the ball down the field. The main method that I saw though was kicking the ball down the field to another player, or handballing the ball which involved punching the ball to a player close by. If a player is running full force down the field, they must bounce the ball on the ground and not just hold onto it, like in American football.

I learned after about a quarter that there is a mark around the goal posts on both sides that when a player on the same team kicks a ball to another player in the area that is marked, they get a free kick in the place they catch it in. If a player kicks the ball to the player in the area that is marked but they drop it, there is no free kick awarded to that player. This was the way that most of the points were scored in the game. The player on the opposite time has a chance to block the ball, but they have to stand a certain distance back from the ball in order to block it. I never saw a player block the other teams ball though, which shows how hard it is to do it.

The players are allowed to tackle the other team, but by pushing an opponent in the back or doing other dangerous physical contact allows the other team a free kick. The purpose of tackling is to try and get the player to fumble the ball, or let another player jump on top of the opponent to steal the ball from them. There was not as much physical tackling compared to rugby, but some of the players still got hit pretty hard. The entire game, each player was paired with another player who was their mark for the entire game.

I also noticed that both teams had a huge cheering section for the dedicated fans. Each time their team scored points, they would wave their flags and cheer extremely loud. This got me pumped up because it reminded me of back in the United States how people have huge team spirit for their teams. People in Australia may have team spirit, but they do not show it as much as Americans do.

I liked footy a lot, but I think I like the sport of rugby more. The AFL game was extremely long, which lasted about 2.5 hours. It was a lot easier catching on to the AFL game and understanding the rules, but I feel like after a while things were very repetitive. I also noticed that in AFL, there is a lot more scoring than in rugby because it is a lot easier to score by just having to kick the ball through the goal posts instead of running the wall down the field into the end zone. 

At the end of the game, both teams greeted one another and shook hands, which showed their good sportsmanship.

The game was pretty close the first half, but the second half the Sydney Swans got blown out. Even though the Sydney Swans lost 106 to 60, I still enjoyed the game tremendously.

I am so glad I got the opportunity to take this sports class, and get to experience all of the sporting events in Australia. Even though the class ended last night, I will still continue watching different sports in Australia and maybe even go to another rugby or AFL game now that I know most of the rules!