Footy

It's been a bit of a busy week - wrapping up things and getting ready to head back to the states.  Hard to imagine that our time is at an end.  Getting those last things in - revisiting that restaurant and cafe', getting to that gallery we haven't seen, walking through a favorite neighborhood.  And of course - getting to a footy game.  This week has been pretty wild for sport in Melbourne - the Australia Soccer team (the Socceroo's) qualified for the world cup by winning a match here, Wimbledon began with allot of focus on the Aussies there, the English/Irish Lions Rugby team is in Australia for a 3 game series.  There are two different forms of Rugby played professionally here. This is Rugby Union - which is different that Rugby League (which also had games this week) - the city of Melbourne was overrun with mad British Rugby fans in kilts.  People love their Rugby - and their footy even more.

Aussie Rules - "footy"  is a crazy sport.  Watching a game can only be described as chaos - people tell me that there are rules and strategy but I'm not seeing it.  There is no stoppage of play and most anything goes.  There are 22 players per side and also all sort of non-playing people on the field during the game.  Of course there are referees, but the medical staff, watter boy, and messengers (from the coach) also come on the field during the play.  When a player goes down the play goes on and the medical staff come out to attend to them.  They kick, punch, throw, pitch the ball and each other.  The ball is passed to eachother by kicking it and while in the air they climb up eachother's back (called a specky) to get to a higher point and catch the ball.  Points are only scored by kicking the ball between tall poles at either end of the field which is an oval (the cricket pitch).

We went to the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) - quite an impressive venue - yesterday to see the Richmond Tigers take on the St. Kilda Saints.  The MCG holds 90,000 people - it was an truely Melbourne experience.  The interesting thing is that more than half the teams in the AFL are in Melbourne.  Each represents a different neighborhood in the city and this is the origins of the sport - the neighborhood club.  There are 2 large stadiums - the MCG & Etihad in Melbourne and all the teams play their matches in these.  So it is common to have equal numbers of fans for both sides in attendance and there are fierce rivalries between the different parts of the city. I have to say I still prefer American football (they refer to it as gridiron) and baseball to footy and cricket, but I could adjust if I lived here. It is very lively and the people are passionate about their teams.

The MCG

St. Kilda fans in the frot waiving their flags

Chaos

Kicking a goal for Richmond