Obviously being on the other side of the world... football like we Americans know it.... is not the popular sport. In fact they don't know that kind of football at all. But we have been exposed to other sports such as footy and cricket!
Cricket we knew could last DAYS for a single match, so that probably wasn't happening...but footy looked super fun!
Footy is Australian rules rugby. It's very muscular guys with no pads, in short shorts and tank tops using a ball that looks a little like the football we know.
We knew that the season was coming to an end and we really wanted to go to a game so we found tickets to a West Coast Eagles game for Saturday. Perth has two teams and our part of Perth supports the Eagles...so....when in Rome.....
This is the team warming up...
We knew a (very) little bit about how the game was played but after a quick Wikipedia session just before the game started we found out some more of the basics.
And basically that meant we really just learned how the game was scored :)
Here is what the players are going for...these 4 poles.
If they get the ball between the 2 middle poles that is a goal worth 6 points. If they get the ball between the 2 outside poles that is a behind worth 1 point.
This is how it looks on the score board...the first number is how many goals are scored, the second number is how many behinds are scored and the last number is the total points. (make sense?)
Obviously, there is a lot more happening in the middle that I don't quite understand but it's a rough sport and I am way amazed that these guys are out there without any padding.
Despite a little rain, we really enjoyed it! It is a really fun sport to watch! Sadly our team lost by a LOT (final score 43-129....FAIL!) but I'm really glad we got to go, as sports fans it's neat to see sports that we don't normally get to see in the U.S.
And the other team in Perth made the finals for the Championship, so we may have to watch to see how they do...of course now that "American College football' (as ESPN here calls it) has started, we have our priorities (and that means watching games in the middle of the night!) :)
