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Monday June 13, 1994This has been a footy weekend for us. We've been watching footy on the telly since we've been here, but this weekend we really got into it. First of all, footy is short for football but it is not football as known in America. It's rugby!! So that I can contrast the two, I'll refer to American Football as the Aussies do: gridiron.
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Rugby
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Actually, there's three distinct kinds (codes) of rugby played in Australia. In the states of Queensland (QLD), Western Australia (WA), and New South Wales (NSW) where we live, the predominant code is Rugby League. League is professional footy, with sponsored teams, and full-time players (the most expensive of whom might make $80,000 a year) who are also sponsored by businesses. |
Rugby
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In all the states - and at the International level - they play according to the Rugby Union code. It's much more gentlemanly game; most of the players learned to play it when they attended the finer schools, and they continue to play even though most of them are businessmen of one kind or another. It's supposed to be amateur, sort of. Of course, it's taken for granted that some business will hire the stars of the teams and give them $100,000-a-year jobs doing marketing or public relations work, which, of course, leaves them free to pursue rugby union. From the company's standpoint, it probably makes sense. Rugby stars have superstar status here, and a sales visit from such a superstar is sure to end up in the managing director's (president's) office. More on Rugby Union later. |
Australian
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In the state of Victoria (VIC), though, they play a different kind of football - Australian Rules also called AFL Football. I think sometimes you can see this on television on ASPN in the US. It is even more demanding of athletic prowess and stamina than Rugby League or Rugby Union. Melbourne (pronounced MEL-bun) is the capital of Victoria and also the capital of the AFL. They've been playing Aussie Rules footy there for years and years, but only last week allowed the first Rugby League game to be played there, State of Origin II. |
The terms that are used are quite strange to our ears, and probably to yours. I've included a glossary, as well as attempts to describe some of the differences between this brand of rugby and gridiron.
This weekend,
which was a 3-day holiday weekend celebrating the Queen's birthday (Queen
Elizabeth), had lots of footy. We were fortunate enough to be invited to
attend a special deal for the final Test Match between
Australia and Ireland. Australian companies pay a promotional company to put
on dinner before the match and a cocktail party afterward. Our employer had
a table for about ten people (normally sales persons and their prospects).
Judy and I were invited to give us an excellent introduction to the more
"cultural" aspects of football. However, one of our guests - when
told that - scoffed at the idea. He said this was "business
culture" that affected only less than a thousand people and that if we
wanted to get a real feel for the cultural aspects of Aussie footy, we
should go to one of the pubs throughout the city and see how most Aussies
were preparing to watch the game.
We, on the other hand, were being treated to fascinating speeches by a former great player from Ireland, and others by one of the most highly regarded Australian players, the former captain of the Wallabies (as the Australian International team is known), Mark Ella.
Mark is an Aboriginal, and the first of his race to play in a Test match. He told some hilarious stories about his introduction to the International game and some of his experiences, including a ill-fated term as coach of an Italian team. I could've listened to him all day instead of the half-hour after dinner speech.
The speeches and catered dinner were held in a tent on the parade grounds of the Victoria Barracks, built in the mid 1800's for the Army and still used today by portions of the Australian Defence Forces. Outside, a marching band practiced, while inside we hob-nobbed with folks who arrived and departed in limousines (we took a train and then a taxi.)
After
dinner, we walked several blocks to the Sydney Cricket Grounds (SCG) and the
Sydney Football Stadium for the
match between Ireland and Australia. The Wallabies won the match after an
excellent and close game. The also won the series that had been played
throughout Australia between the two teams.
The Man of the Match (the most valuable player) was an Irish player who
brought down the house with laughter when, in his acceptance speech, he
thanked the Aussies for the friendship and hospitality extended during their
stay in the land down under, especially that shown them by the Aussie
lasses.
Judy and I were both struck by the oddity of having people on either side of us cheer for good play by either side. It was explained that it was a gentlemanly game and that they appreciated good play no matter which side scored. It was also hinted, by dedicated Rugby Union fans, that Rugby League is played by paid thugs and ruffians.
At one time it seemed the whole stadium loudly booed the official who disallowed an Irish try because of a penalty. When Ireland scored on the next play anyway, the stadium went wild with cheers.
There was a sizeable contingent of Irish in the stands, which hold about 75,000 people. Since the Irish side was formed for the first time by players from both North and South Ireland, only the Australian national anthem was played to start the game. That didn't stop the Irish contingent from singing Irish songs of encouragement as the match progressed, and at times it seemed that more than half the people were barracking for Ireland. (It's been previously explained to us that one does not root for a side, as this term has a crude sexual connotation in Australia.)
Like Sydney in general, the ethnicity of our group was extremely mixed: An Afrikkaner from South Africa now an Australian naturalized citizen, a Danish engineer for Telecom Australia, a kiwi from New Zealand now selling AT&T telephone products in Australia, an Irish telecommunications architect for Qantas Airways, a British salesman for our company, etc. I think there might have been 2 True Blue Australians out of the 10 people in our party. To show you what a small world this is, two stories:
In
the past month, the first two games of the State of Origin series of Rugby
League were played. At first, the term didn't mean much to either of us -
but now we understand. Selectors (former players and other knowledgeable
persons) pick current Rugby League players who were born in either
Queensland or New South Wales, and these players form temporary teams
representing each of the states of QLD and NSW for a best-of-three series
each year. This age-old rivalry which sometimes sees team-mates playing
against each other is some very rough footy, with very big, very experienced
players, some very hard hitting, and some thrilling matches. The telly
commercials are to the tune by the rock group Queen "We will rock
you" ... and some of the hits they show are really brutal. The first
game was in Sydney and the NSW Blues were beaten with 3 seconds to go by the
Queensland Maroons.
State
of Origin II was played last week on neutral ground in Melbourne in the
state of Victoria - the first ever such a league game in the land of the
AFL. It was really hyped a lot in Victoria, and resulted in the largest
crowd ever to see a Rugby League game and one of the largest crowds ever in
the Melbourne Cricket Grounds: 87,000 of the 100,000 seats were filled by
curious Victorians. There's lots of predictions that the Rugby League will
try now to establish a foothold with a new team in Melbourne. It's only fair
- the AFL has a Sydney team, the Swans. Anyway, the Blues evened the series
at one game apiece, so the final State of Origin III is next week in the
Maroon's home town, Brisbane QLD. It should be a dilly.
As I type this, the Australian version of Wheel of Fortune (complete with
bimbo letter-tile turner) is featuring the semi-finals in the much-touted
"Battle of the Codes". The players are footy players from each of
the Rugby and Soccer leagues!!
This
afternoon, Judy and I wandered across the street from our apartment to the North
Sydney Football Oval. The stands are gorgeous but ancient - they were
moved from the Sydney Cricket Ground to preserve them when the SCG was
rebuilt to a modern, open-top, stadium. The oval is the home of the 
North
Sydney Bears, a Rugby League team with a formidable reputation and a number
of well-known players currently on a losing streak. They played host to the
Ilawara Steelers, and in a game marked by more goals than
tries, beat them. The Bears are known as the Norths,
and have opposition from the Sydney Easts (the eastside suburbs), the
Souths (southside suburbs), as well as teams from Manly (a beach
suburb of Sydney), Paramatta (another Sydney suburb), and teams from other
states. This afternoon's game, played on a dreary, cool day (11 degrees C) ,
filled the stands, the grounds, and even the limbs of a few old trees around
the oval.
It's evening now, and Wide World of Sports on ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company!!!) is showing a delayed broadcast of this afternoon's game. The two sportscasters doing the game both "tipped" for Ilawara - so I guess they really do the introductions before the game instead of afterwards when they know the outcome.
An interesting aspect of the schedule of games is that the teams and rough schedules are laid out before the season starts. That is, we knew that Norths and Ilawara were playing this weekend, but we didn't know until after last weeks State of Origin game exactly which day they would play. That was determined by the selectors after looking at who was injured, who was winning, who was losing, and therefore which games would make the better television games on Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon. They don't normally play games under the lights; a recent commemoration of the 100th meeting between Norths and Manly was played at night outside our apartment, and they brought in huge light trucks from the USA with gargantuan light clusters and electric generators. That game attacted a record 30,000 to the North Sydney oval....and the lights really lit up our bedroom on the sixth floor of a building a block away.
| try | Scoring by carrying the ball into (and touching it down in) what we would call the end zone - that area between the goal line and the dead ball line (back of the end zone). |
| goal | Scoring by kicking the ball through the uprights. Goals carry varying points depending on whether they are kicked as a penalty, as kick after a successful try, or as a kick on the run. |
| touchdown | Grounding the ball in your own in-goal area (something like a gridiron touch-back). Play is general restarted with a scrum (see below). |
| scrummage (commonly called a scrum) |  Seven or so of the
big guys (the forwards) on each team lock their arms around each other in
two rows: the hooker is in the center of the front row and the guys on
either side of him are the props. The outside prop is called the loosehead
prop, and the insider the tighthead prop. The second row
consists of the lock in the center, flanked by flankers. The
opposing players bend over at the waist, and meet the other half of the scrum.
Those in the second row lock onto the first row with their arms and insert
their heads into the space between the rear ends of the props and the
hooker. Depending on the reason for the scrum, one of the teams "puts
in the ball" into the "tunnel" created between the teams.
The front rows then try to move the ball around with their feet so that it
comes out at a place other than where it was put in. As soon as it clears
the scrum, somebody left outside the scrum will pick it up and the ball is
in play again.
In the AFL, there is no scrummage, and the AFL players put down the players of the other code as bum sniffers . |
| ruck | The formation that occurs when the ball is on the ground and opposing players bend over it. They cannot touch the ball, but must move the ruck around so that ball is uncovered. As soon as it is, the ruck ends, and running play resumes with some player picking up the ball and running (or kicking it). |
| rucking | In Rugby League, game resumes after each tackle with each side backing off of the ball except for the dummy-half, the scrum-half, and the marker. The dummy-half is the player who just was tackled with the ball. He regains his feet and "rucks" the ball by rolling it with his foot backwards to his own scrum-half standing behind him. The rest of his team is strung out in a line across the field, and the scrum-half must either run with the ball or pass it to one of them, who will run until it looks like he's about to be tackled, and then he will spin the ball out to one of his mates. It looks like a gridiron lateral - it must not go forward or sideways, only backwards. Hence, when things get moving, this diagonal line of players on the side (not called a team) with the ball sweeps down the field. The passes are underhanded slings of the ball, and when skillfully applied the pass is a thing of beauty. |
| knock on | The ball can never be advanced in a forward direction except by carrying it or kicking it, so if you attempt to advance the ball by pushing it forward while it's on the ground, it's called a knock on and results in a penalty. |
| kicking | Some of the biggest differences in the codes are in the kicking game. In
League play, you get 6 tackles in which to score a try; otherwise, the
ball goes over to the other side. So, after 5 tackles, the offensive team
often launches a running kick to advance the ball. In Union play, the
number of tackles doesn't matter, but short kicks are offensive weapons to
advance the ball. A number of things can happen at this point:
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| Test Match | An international meeting between national teams that are chosen by selectors from the best of Rugby Union players. |
| round ball | Derisive term for the other kind of footbal played around the world, soccer. There is a World Cup series every four years in both Rugby and Soccer. The Soccer World Cup matches this year are to be held in the USA. |
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The Aussie Game of Footy
We
got some inkling that there was a difference when the telephone
installer had a go at us about what a bunch of sissies gridiron
players were. He was quite derisive of any game where they have
timeouts, and the idea of a television timeout was a real hoot for
him. He correctly pointed out that Americans play on offense OR
defense OR special-teams, but that Australian football players played
offense AND defense AND as kicker, etc, without benefit of timeouts,
player change, or any padding of any kind (they are allowed only to
wear leather headgear something like a WW-II pilot's helmet).
Copyright
1995,1996,1999,2001