Sydney Rabbitohs National Rugby League Game (Week 8)

Last night, I went to a National Rugby League (NRL) game with the Sydney Rabbitohs playing against the St. George Dragons. Since I will not be able to make the NRL game on May 14th, I decided to make it up by going to a game tonight. The Rabbitohs home stadium is at the ANZ Stadium, which is where the Olympics were held in 2000! The stadium is in Sydney Olympic Park, which was built just for the Olympics about 11 years ago. It was amazing walking up to the stadium knowing that records were broken and history was made in the same place I was about to enter. Luckily, we got to the stadium about 30 minutes before the game started, so we walked around for a bit exploring the complex. Right outside of the ANZ Stadium, there were hundreds of colored poles sticking up out of the ground. As we walked up to the poles, I realized that alphabetically, each one of the athletes who participated in the Sydney 2000 Olympics names were inscribed on the poles. 

Being my very first rugby game, I was extremely excited to go. We had to take a train to the Olympic Park, which let us off right in front of the stadium. The design of the stadium was awesome, because the outside structure reminded me of a roller coaster how it goes up and down, up and down.

Right when I walked into the stadium, it reminded me of being in America and going to a sporting event. There were huge screens all over with thousands of people filling in wearing their team colors. I am not sure how, but we had amazing seats. I realized that buying tickets for sporting events in Australia is not like buying tickets for sporting events in America. In America, the more you pay for a ticket, the better seat you have. In Australia, there is only one type of ticket you can buy depending on what category you fall into (adult, child, student, senior). Our seats were right in the middle of the field, and 19 rows up. Another thing I noticed was that sporting events in America attract a lot more people. The stadium was not even close to being half full, and there were only 22,700 people that attended the game. When I go to the Saints football games in New Orleans, the stadium is packed and there is probably triple the amount of people.

It was awesome going to a rugby game, especially in Australia. Since we learned about the differences in the three rugby leagues, it made me appreciate the game even more. It took me a while to remember all of the rules, but eventually I started to understand what was going on. I learned that a "try" is the rugby equivalent of a touchdown in American football. You get 4 points for a try, and then you get to kick a "field goal" for 2 extra points. To score the 4 points, you have to actually touch the ball in the try zone (endzone), or it does not count. The player holding the ball would dive into the try zone when they were about to score. I also learned that a team has 6 tries to run the ball down the field for a touchdown, and if they do not do it, they have to kick the ball to the other team. I know it is possible to score 2 points by kicking a field goal, but I am not sure of the rules of when you can do it. Passing in rugby league may only be in a backward or sideways direction. Also, when a player gets tackled, the ball is still in play, which is different than American football. A player from the other team can strip the ball out of the hands of the player on the ground, but I think they only have so much time to do so while the opposing player is on the ground. After getting up from being tackled, the player with the ball has to send it backwards behind them, usually done by putting the ball on the ground and using the bottom of their foot to roll it backwards.

As I said before, I definitely caught on by the end of the game, but I still have a lot of learning to do about rugby. Of course, I had to root for the Sydney Rabbitohs, even though their mascot was a dinky rabbit that did not look very fierce at all.

The referees wore pink shirts, in which I feel that in America would never happen. Since football is supposed to be a tough, man's sport, wearing pink even if you were the referees would not be acceptable in society. I loved the pink shirts though!

It was also interesting to see that there were only about 5 players sitting on the bench to sub in. The entire game, I think each team only substituted their players 2 times each. These men play the ENTIRE game for 40 minutes halves. Since there are 13 players who are out on the field for each team, they were getting super tired by the end. People wearing either green or orange shirts would run out during the middle of the game to bandage up any wounds or to give these players water. I feel that if they substituted their players more, the men would not be as exhausted by the end of the game or even during the game.

I could tell there were different positions, but was not sure what the role of each of the positions were. All I knew was that when a team was close to scoring, the entire stadium would scream and cheer. The way these men were built was very interesting to observe because their legs were HUGE, but they were not very tall. Each of them wore short-shorts and a very tight jersey, which is something very different from uniforms for men in America!

Overall, I had an amazing time watching a sport being played that is different from American sports. I am going to a Australian Football League game with my sports class in a month, and am excited to see the different rules and the way the game is played. Here are some pictures of rugby in action!

The Rabbitohs ended up losing 16-0, but I still had an amazing time.

Melbourne Cricket Ground (Week 7)

This past weekend, I missed going to the Indigenous Rugby League Game because I was in Melbourne. Since I was missing a field trip, I wanted to make it up in Melbourne by doing something sports related or going to a sporting event. In a pamphlet I received upon arriving at my hostel in Melbourne, there was an advertisement for the National Sports Museum at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. I thought this museum would be extremely interesting because after learning a lot already about Australian sports and culture in our class, it would have been a great experience seeing the greatest moments in Australian sport in a museum. The museum was a chance to relieve the story of Australian sports featuring different moments for athletic legends. 

I decided to go on the last day we were there because it was raining that day and would be a good opportunity to get out of the rain since it was pouring all morning. As I walked up to the Melbourne Cricket Ground, I noticed a lot of cars were driving up and people were dressed wearing team jerseys of the same color. This is when it hit me that a AFL game was going on that afternoon with the Brisbane Lions against the Melbourne Football Club. I arrived at the stadium around 1:00 p.m., and the game started at 1:10 p.m. Trying to be optimistic about the museum being opened despite the game, I walked up and asked. They told me that the museum was closed and that I would have to come back the next day. Unfortunately, I left at 6 a.m. the next morning, and would have no chance to go back to the museum.

I went to the ticket booth and asked how much the tickets cost for the game, wanting to see AFL in real action. My friends thought the price was too much, so we decided not to go. I would have gone alone, but I realized that as a class we are going to see the Sydney Swans play against Hawthorne for an AFL game. This way, I would still get a chance to see Australian football!

Since the museum was closed and the ticket prices were a little too much, I decided to walk around the Melbourne Cricket Ground to see the stadium and observe the people coming to watch the game.

As I was walking, out of the corner of my eye I saw a plaque with the Olympic symbol on it.

I realized that the 1956 Olympics were held in Melbourne! It was interesting to see this from so long ago and how 50 years later the Olympics were held in Sydney!

The people going to this AFL game seemed to not have as much energy as fans going to an American football game. In America, the fans would be blowing their horns and screaming out their team name upon arriving. Also, there was no tailgating before the game, which is very popular in America. The people walking up were taking their time getting to the stadium, even if they were 30 minutes late. I got a chance to peek my head inside for a second, and saw that the stadium was not even close to being completely full. At American football games, the stadiums are always packed with people and it is really hard to find tickets. I learned from this that even though Australians may be more competitive into their sports, Americans may at times be more passionate about their teams.

Seeing the Melbourne Football Club made me excited to go to a Sydney Swans game in about a month!

Newtown North Public School Soccer Game (Week 6)

Since we did not have a field trip this weekend, I decided to go out today and explore Australia and see what sporting events I could find. I started walking towards campus, but before I knew it, I found children playing sports at school. I live at Sydney University Village and right next to where my apartment is in the village is Newtown North Public School. 

Every single day when I walk to class or to the bus stop, I walk by the school and there are ALWAYS children playing sports outside. I decided to stand outside the fence for about ten minutes observing the children playing.

I noticed many similarities and difference from the way American children play during recess at school. Some similarities include the boys were playing sports by themselves and most of the girls sat around and talked together. There was not really much interaction between the girls and boys, because none of the boys seemed to be sitting around and not many of the girls were playing sports. At this Australian school, I noticed that the boys set up their own game of soccer, and some of the boys were teaching others who did not understand the rules. The boys wanted to play a fair game and not be frustrated if someone was not playing right. Even though I am sure this happens in America too, I do not think the children are that intense in playing sports during recess. Also, I noticed that since the children were all wearing the same uniform, they had a certain system to show who was on what team. I did not really follow what they were doing, but it was interesting to watch. It was intriguing to stand than and observe an elementary school group of children play outside from another country other than my own. Every day I learn more and more about Australian sports and culture, and getting in tune with the Aussie way of life!

Lawn Bowling: "The Best Fun You Can Have On Two Feet" (Week 5)

On Sunday, we had our second field trip to North Sydney for lawn bowling, which was so much fun! When we arrived, it looked exactly like a country club in America. There were retired aged men all sitting around, some bowling, while drinking beer and hanging out. I noticed that they are were wearing the same white jerseys. 

When we got there, we had to sign a waiver which they told us meant that we had to be over 18 years old if were to win any money. Unfortunately, none of us got the chance to play for money, which was probably a good thing being our first time playing! Once signing in, we also got wristbands with a number on it stating which team we were a part of, where I was on team 5!

Lawn bowling is a sport in which the objective is to roll a slightly asymmetric weighted ball as close to a smaller white ball called a "jack". The ground you roll the ball on is well-taken care of grass that almost looks too perfect. This is necessary so the ball can roll smoothly.

There is a dot on one side of the ball that shows which side is weighted. This is important to know so the person playing knows which way to curve the ball to get close to the jack. There is a gutter behind the jacks that is full of sand, so if you throw it too hard, it will land in the gutter. We were in teams of about 4-5 people, and played against another team. Each team had a colored set of balls so you know whose is whose and did not get mixed up.

We practiced and got an introduction for about 5 minutes, and then it started to POUR! I do not mean rain, I mean POUR! We were handed ponchos, but decided to wait inside for about 30 minutes until it cleared up. Once it did, the sun came out and the weather was perfect. Once the rain went away, we broke up into teams and played in a tournament. I am not exactly sure how the scoring works, but the team who gets their balls closest to the jack gets the most points. Out of about 12 teams, my team was the only team to not score any points. I guess lawn bowling was not our thing, but I definitely did improve by the end. A couple of times I actually hit the jack, which could be good and bad depending where the other balls land. At the end, they had finals for the winners bracket and the losers bracket. The winner in the winners bracket got a trophy with a cup on it, and the losers bracket winner got a horses butt trophy. 

Even though the United States has nothing like this, it did remind me a lot of regular bowling. The same ideas were used, including a heavy weighted ball being thrown at a smaller object. Also both bowling in America and law bowl consisted of gutters, and a nice, smooth surface to throw the ball on. Even though I have never played bocce, everyone said it was the closest thing to what we play in America. I had such a fun day though and a great experience lawn bowling. By the end I was really catching on to the sport and the precise was to throw the ball. It showed me a different sport than I am used to. If I lived in Australia, I would definitely take it up as a sport!

Competitive Tennis Match (Week 4)

This week, we did not have a field trip unfortunately, but I learned more about Australian's and their love with sports by watching girls play tennis at one of the colleges. This past weekend, I was walking by and saw two girls warming up to play tennis. I then proceeded to walk up to the fence and watch these two girls warm up, and they play for a little bit to get the experience of watching tennis in another country. 

I know that the game of tennis cannot change much from country to country, but I wanted to see how competitive these girls were. As I stood against the fence during their warm up, the girls were so competitive that if the ball hit the line one of them would yell at the other to try and prove that the ball was actually in bounds. I feel like in America during a warm up girls would not yell at one another, rather play for fun to warm up their muscles. It made me realize what the lecturers were saying all along, how Australians are so competitive with everything that they do, especially sports. As the girls proceeded in actually playing, the intensity got even stronger and one of the girls wanted her friend to come and be the referee of the match to make things fair. I was very surprised by this request since they were only playing for fun, but once again, Australians are in love with their sports, and will probably always be.

Swimmers are the Most Well Known Athletes in Australia (Week 2)

This week, March 7th, was my first lecture with this class and my first learning experience about Australian swimming. During this 2 hour period, I learned so much information about swimming in Australia and how popular it is to compete. One of the things that Christina said was that swimmers are the most well known athletes in Australia, which completely blew my mind. In America, swimming is not a big sport at all and the athletes are not very well known. One reason I believe why swimmers are the most well known in Australia, and not in America, is because the majority of the people living in Australia live near the coast. In America, people live throughout the country, and not primarily on the edges near the water. Therefore, people who live in the middle of the country in America may never have seen the ocean, where swimming is very popular. Other sports such as basketball, baseball, soccer, and football do not need the ocean or a swimming pool to be played. Therefore, this can make these sports more popular because only land is needed, which occurs across the country.

I live about a mile from the beach back in America, where my city is called, "Surf City Huntington Beach." Therefore, a lot of my friends swim and surf, making many of the athletes who surf very well know in my city. Therefore, I can name a few surfers off of the top of my head, but can definitely name more athletes who play land sports. This gives me a new perspective and appreciation for swimmers and surfers after learning about the importance of swimmers and the ocean in Australia.

First Week in Sydney and my First Cricket Encounter (Week 1)

After going to lecture on Monday, March 14, I realized I am behind 2 weeks in my blog postings. This one is supposed to be for week 1, so I can get all caught up.

Being an American studying abroad from California has been an incredible experience so far. I did not arrive in Sydney until March 4th, in which I missed the whole first week of Uni. I was really sick with mono back at home, and was not allowed to travel until I got better. Therefore, I missed the first lecture, but will write about my first experience seeing cricket being played right when I got onto campus!

When I arrived on March 4th, I moved into my apartment right away. I wanted to walk around the campus and see what Sydney Uni and Australia looked like. Right across the street from my apartment is a huge field, in which I saw a bunch of men running around throwing a ball. I walked up close to the field and learned that these men were playing cricket. Immediately, I thought of baseball because of the way the men hit the ball with a bat. The only difference I saw for the short amount of time I watched the men was that their bat was flat, instead of rounded. I did not stay for long watching them play, but eventually in my time in Sydney I definitely want to go watch a cricket game being played. If I am lucky enough and can find someone with the equipment, I really want to play the sport. I am really excited to learn about cricket in this class, and how it is different from baseball back in America. This class so far has really opened me up to Australian culture and sports, which is something that will help me experience Australia on a deeper level.