Australian Rules Football – the Likes and Dislikes – Blog Series

Blog Series – Post 1

Before we can discuss the likes and dislikes of Australian Rules Football, its best to explain a little bit about what it is for new readers not from Australia.

A little bit about Australian Rules Football

Also called: Aussie Rules, AFL, footy

Its a sport played in Australia that originated in Melbourne. Now the league consists of 2 teams in Western Australia, 2 teams in South Australia, 1 team in Sydney, 1 team in Brisbane and the rest in Melbourne. I would have to say that it is a sport that is hard to explain until one goes to see it but since not everyone will be lucky enough to go to a live game, here goes: its a mixture of soccer, rugby, basketball, football (american that it is) all put together to make a new game! And it is played on an oval (aka a cricket pitch) so this means the players have to be super fit but alos their are 18 players on each side on the field at a time!

The Game of Aussie Rules Football (AFL)

The focus of the game is to kick goals through two posts that are found at each end, which gives the team 6 points; if they miss and go through the other shorter post (not in the centre), they get 1 point.

You can’t just run with the ball, the ball either has to touch the ground with the persons hand, or bounced (which is no easy feat since the ball is oblong), or handballed, or the player can kick the ball to another player. If the player catches it and the kick was 15 meters long, then the player with the ball gets a small period of time and space from the defender to decide wither to kick to someone or handball or run with it.

What’s a handball?

Good question-Basically like an underhand serve in volleyball except the ball is oblong and the goal is to puch the ball towards a player to catch it.

It’s a very fast paced game and is played for 30 minute quarters (so 2 hours of sport!) with no timeouts allowed except between quarters.

Ok so that’s the gist of footy, next we will talk about some of the likes or pros of the game and then the dislikes or cons of hte sport.

Until next time!

Oh and if you like this post, you are likely interested in what else goes on in Melbourne – since it is the sporting capital of the world!