Friday was a rainy day in Melbourne but that could not deter Liz and I from rugging up and heading out to the Australian Rules Football Match (Footy). The match was between the Saint Kilda Saints and the Geelong Cats. As you can see from this picture we were barracking for the Saints. This was a big match in the AFL because the Cats were #1 and the Saints were #2 so it promised to be a great match. We started out by grabbing a couple of meat pies and a beer at concessions and afterward took a couple of pictures to show off our support for Saint Kilda.
When we found our seats they were unfortunately uncovered so we were sitting in the rain but we had brought along a couple of ponchos to keep us dry. The ponchos worked well so we were able to stay relatively dry albeit decidedly less stylish.
We had a great time at the match. It was back and forth the entire game but at halftime Saint Kilda was down by about three goals. The second half ended up being much better for the fans of the Saints however, as they came back in a huge way and ended up winning the match by 24 points. Australian Rules Football is a fantastic sport to watch (seriously, look it up on youtube) so Liz and I had a great time with the Saints comeback as icing on the cake.
Another very interesting aspect of this match was the colorful comments and cometary from our fellow fans. Some of my favorites came from a gentleman sitting behind us shouting out fun sound bites like; "YOU MONGREL!", "PUNCH HIM IN THE KIDNEYS!", and "NICE KICK PRIME MINISTER!" This last one was very popular because the Australian Labor Party just replaced Kevin Rudd with his deputy Julia Gillard making her Australia's first female prime minister. That's the type of wild shouts I like at my sporting events. Biting, yet politically topical.
after the match we all filed out of the stadium as one long procession to the train station as one woman in the crowd played "The Saints Go Marching In" on the bagpipes and red, white, and black flags flew. We had a great time at the match and look forward to seeing many more.
GO SAINTS!!!!!
4 comments:
I take it this was a rugby game. Is that right? I knew quite a few people back in college who loved rugby. It is a tough game. I've never seen a game played like this. I didn't know it was played on a round field.
Nope, Australian Rules football is a different game that is pretty much only played in Australia. It is so much fun because they basically never stop running and scrambling for the ball. Also, you can't throw the ball, you have to kick it or punt it with your hand. And, you can jump on other peoples back to catch the ball!
Here is the official website of the AFL: http://www.afl.com.au/
Here is the wikepidea on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_rules_football
I didn't find much about the rules on the Official AFL site, but since it is for Australians, I figure they already know the rules. I found quite a bit about it on Wikipedia.
Hey you guys. Seems you are having a blast. Love to go to a "footy" game myself. Maybe we will make it there to do that one day. Aunt B
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