The Sydney Swans - the city's Australian Football League team. We went to a game last Saturday night at the Olympic stadium! One of my American friends is in a class with one of the Swans players and he got us 'players tickets' for the game!! We had little passes that let us into the 'members section' and we got to sit wherever we wanted in the section. We chose seats about 15 rows up from the grass towards one side of the 'end zone.' Close enough to see the player's faces and far enough to see what was really going on around the field.
Aussie football is a mix of American football and soccer. Points are scored by kicking field goals (they have to be punted) through posts at either end of the oval shaped field. 6 points for kicking it between the two center posts and 1 point for kicking it within the outer posts. The ball is oval shaped - rounder and smoother than an American football - and can be moved by either running it forward, tossing it to a teammate who is behind, punting it forward, or passing it forward to a teammate by punching it forward like an underhand volleyball serve. If the ball is kicked forward and successfully caught, the teammate who caught the ball is given the opportunity to kick the ball again without competitors in the way. It took us the first 30 min quarter and the help of an eight year old sitting in front of us to figure that much out. Its kind of crazy to watch. If you're really interested on the details, heres the wikipedia article on Australian Footie.
The game was a ton of fun, the Olympic park is very impressive, and we're now trying to figure out the rules for rugby...
Go Swans!!!
;) Rach
1 comment:
Rugby's so impressive to watch -- see if you can find a game of 7s (much more running) and a game of 15s (much more tackling). It's almost like it's a different sport.
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