At noon we met up with George's friend Martin who has lived in Melbourne for quite a few years. Martin was nice enough to pick us up from our hostel and drive us around the city a good bit. We parked on Brunswick street and ate at Vegi Bar, which Martin had frequented ten or so years ago (and it still exists). We all had veggie burgers which were delicious. I had a satian burger with chips (french fries) and Martin and Katie both had the tempeh burger. Martin is a fellow computer scientist so over lunch we showed each other what we have been working on recently and generally bored Katie with technobabble.
After lunch Martin showed us around the city a bit more before dropping us back at the hostel. At 3 PM we were meeting up with some others in the hostel lobby to attend an Australian Rules Football, aka footy, game. The game was the Richmond Tigers (a Melbourne team) vs. the Fremantle Dockers (a west coast team) at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground). The stadium is enormous, it can hold up to 100,000 people but the attendance for today's game was around 34,000. I've never been to an american football game (how un-American of me!) so I don't know how big those stadiums are, but this one seemed slightly bigger. UPDATE: I just looked at Wikipedia's list of stadiums by capacity, and it looks like MCG is the 10th largest in the world.
AFL is nothing like american football, or rugby, or soccer, or anything you've seen before. Some of the rules and components of the game come from rugby union, netball and basketball but it would be hard to characterize footy as similar to any of those sports. Like any game the objective is to score the most points but primarily what you want to do is kick the ball through the two taller center goal posts. Kicking the ball through the taller posts is called a goal and is worth six points. There are also two shorter goalposts on the outside and if you kick or punt/tap it through those it's called a point and is worth one point. A point can also be scored by tapping or punting it through the center goalposts. There is no over or underhand passing in the game. Players advance the ball by running, kicking, or punting (which I deciphered to be just sort of a volleyball-like serve maneuver where you sort of tap/punch the ball forward). Players can only run for 15 meters before the ball has to touch the ground. If a player is running for a long distance they can bounce the ball off the ground back up to themselves (very similar to a dribble in basketball).
The main "trick" or exciting/strategic move of the game seemed to be a mark. A mark occurs when the ball travels in the air (from a kick) for 15 meters or more and a player catches it on the fly. Where the player catches the ball is the "mark" and they have a free kick from that mark. The players on the other team can't go past the mark to disrupt the kick. What this amounts to is any time the ball is in the air everyone is jumping, shoving and colliding to try to get to it or stop the other team from getting it. The longer the ball is in the air the more chaotic it gets. The easiest goals are scored if a player manages to catch a ball on the fly and get a mark relatively close to the goalposts they are trying to score on. And finally, all of this is on a really large circular field with no pads and not many restrictions on contact. The only time play stops is if the ball goes out of bounds or at the end of a quarter. Ties are a draw, no overtime, shootout or sudden death.
To summarize, it was incredible. The venue was tremendous and it was enthralling to watch a sport I previously knew nothing about with a bunch of locals that were really into it. I wish my brother was there, or really anyone I've ever watched sports with. Hell, I wish all of you were there.
Other interesting observations. The game is quite physical but also requires incredible stamina. The players were all ridiculously fit - somewhat muscular but generally lean and fast. There was also a lot of extra cirricular activity but it was nothing like the scuffles and fights that go on away from the plays in american football or basketball. After a good play or a hard hit the players would push, bump, nudge and hit each other but they were almost always smiling as if to say "good play but I still think I'm better than you." The fans are also very enthusiastic but not nearly as over the top, rude and heckling as american sports fans. Overall there was a real balance between physical competition and mutual respect and sportsmanship.
Entrance was AUD $20 a ticket to sit in the general admission seating where we sat three rows back from the field.
Wish I was there too bro! Looks like a lot of fun. How much did they charge for a Foster's?!?
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