YEAH, C'MOOON DEMONS! WOOOOOOO! It was The Melbourne Demons versus the Sydney Swans! We were barracking (as the Aussies say) the DEMONS!!!! The Demons are a scrappy team, their fans are generalized as the “shout-out-mistakes-and-comments-while-glugging-beer-and-gobbling-chips” kind of people. But that’s just a few of them. Actually, pretty much everyone was shouting comments, myself included, but only a few people were drinking beer. Anyway, we were here with almost front row tickets, at the opening round of the Australian Rules Football Games. Yeah, right….rules.

The field was ovular and at each end there were 4 posts. You got SIX points for kicking the ball through the middle goal and ONE point if you got it through one of the side goals. To score you could only kick, no throwing. I thought I would be slightly bored, as I tend to be when I watch baseball; soon we were seated though, and I waited for the game to begin. Like our games at home, the match was preceded by short speeches from people in suits who nobody knew existed, and the national anthem. My mom said it made her feel very patriotic even though she didn’t live here. However, once this was all over, there was no massive horn blast to “Begin the Games” the ref supposedly blew a whistle and without any warning the teams began to play. Wait a minute, wait a minute. I just made several contradictions. There is not one ref, but NINE. In fact, not only do they need nine referees, but the referees actually warmed up before the game. They would need it, because those refs would have to run constantly for 20 minutes at a time, the duration of one quarter.

BASIC FACTS:

There are 18 players per team.

You can slap, hit, punch, kick (anything really) the ball. (And anything to the players other than direct punches and kicks).

The game is divided in to four, twenty minute quarters.

There is no half-time show.

The ball is shaped like a football and made of rust-colored kangaroo leather.

The game hurts.

The game started off well. Both sides were scoring a few points, but we still weren’t really “into” the game. Our guide, Mike, explained the rules as examples were made. Apparently, you could kick or throw the ball at any time other than penalties and clean catches. Clean catches are when someone on your team catches the ball without it touching the ground or bouncing around in their arms before they finally catch it. When this happens, (which is often), nobody can touch you, and you get to set yourself up, drop the ball, and kick it in midair in any direction. Like a soccer goalie’s punt. If your teammate catches it cleanly, he can do it again. Since you can kick it as fast as you want, a series of clean catches all the way to the goal can be quick and devastating. However, it may be harder to get the ball than one might think.

    

As we watched, we saw players pulling on shirts, swinging people to the ground, tackling the legs, full body slamming, piling on top of people, using their bodies to stop kicks at point blank, slamming in to the ground and one man even held down another player by the neck, holding him there as his victim attempted to franticly free himself. Shocked, we asked Mike what would happen to that man. “Well, nothing really, he might get a fine of like, $1000-$2000 dollars, but really nothing will happen.” Flabbergasted, Katherine asked, “He won’t get kicked out of the game?” “Nope” “Why’d he do that?” Here Mike paused before answering, “He’s a very angry man.” We laughed. Then we asked why they didn’t stop the fight. Mike replied that the refs like it to die out by itself, that way the rest of the team didn’t get involved. Still, he said that if things had gotten dangerous, a secret TENTH referee would go out and try to separate them. Apparently holding one down by the throat does not count as dangerous. Throughout the game there would be several other minor fights. Still, all the players were wearing nothing but sleeveless shirts and short shorts, no helmet, no nothing. I couldn’t believe it. It was total chaos; there were absolutely no physical encroachment penalties that we saw. Unlike basketball where you get fouled by hitting the person’s hand instead of the ball, (a stupid and very annoying rule), here you could grapple them and physically stop them for reaching for the ball. One of our favorite players was #24. He looked like he was Jamaican, and that guy could play. He was jumping so high it seemed like he was floating, and he came out of nowhere, stole the ball and zigzagged past the Swan players. He was amazing. I will say that it is quite strange to have the field so close to you, and yet see zoomed in, slow-mo replays on the screens. It was like there were two different games going on. You saw a close up of a player’s face, and you know that that man had just done that in front of you, only you had missed it. I don’t know how to explain it, it was just really weird. OH! Do any of you wonder what happens during a game when the T.V. goes to commercial? Well, basically what happens is this: all the players stop where they are and wait for the commercial to end. That’s it. Actually, during footy matches, a bunch of little kids get to come out and play footy with foam balls during halftime. They’re really cute, and range from about 6 or 7 to 10 or 11. Mike said that many families were switching to soccer, because there are several injuries a week, even with kids. Soon we were down to the last quarter; the Demons were losing horribly and were down by something like 20 points! The quarter began and I was shouting and screaming along with everyone else. The Demons turned in to a monster. They worked together and slammed into the enemy, threw with accuracy and power, and kicked better than they had the rest of the game put together. My Dad had said that a 14 point difference was as close as the game was going to get. HE. WAS. WRONG!   The Swans were charging in, determined to win. The Demons intercepted, “clean catched” to the enemy goal, kicked the ball…everyone held their breath. YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!! I jumped out of my seat and screamed and clapped and cheered, I looked over and found all the Sydney Swan supporters silent and staring, the usual flags now in their laps. I smiled broadly and cheered!!! This was un-bel-iev-able! The Demons had scored six and were winning by ONE POINT! There were less than two minutes to play. However, as sport teams usually do when the time is short and they’ve lost the lead, the Sydney Swans desperately fought their way down the field, only to be repelled. The players converged on the spot, and the ball was inches away from getting in, but #24 bounced everywhere, stopping and grabbing and shoving and the rest of the Demons managed to get the ball away; like two entire soccer teams competing for the ball one foot in front of a goal. However, the Sydney Swans came charging down again, and this time they didn’t wait to get close, with twenty seconds left, they punted the ball from a distance, and sadly, scored one point to tie the match. -Many swears were edited from the recounting of this passage. - : People screamed. Suddenly a few seconds after the tie point, the players stopped. Everyone grumbled and began standing up. Confused, I asked Mike what happened. It turns out that the game was over. Yep, pretty anti-climactic. Both teams looked disappointed, but to my astonishment, players from both teams un-officially shook hands and said good-game. Brutality and manners usually do not go together. We left the stadium with wide smiles, bellies full of meat pie, coca-cola, jelly doughnuts, and happy hearts. We all enjoyed the match thoroughly, even though we never thought we would. We’re not exactly a “die-hard sporting family”. We were greeted by a beautiful afternoon reminiscent of autumn. The sun was shining through the trees’ leaves, the smell of nature and food was in the air, and the temperature was perfect. Ahh, maybe we should move to Australia and start barracking a footie team. Then again, I might get annoyed from my mom’s constant gasps. I know that our entire family would love to go to another footie game. I think I’ll have to make that happen.