ClayNation:All you need to know about Aussie Rules

By Clay Travis
CBSSports.com
SPiN Columnist

 
I've watched Australian Rules football on TV before. Each time I was drunk or in Europe. Occasionally I've been drunk and in Europe.

Every time I've watched the games I've been confused as to what was happening. There was always lots of running and kicking and four large goalposts that seemed to vaguely signify something. Plus there's a guy with a flag who waves it fairly frequently and a general sense of reckless bedlam prevails on the field. When people manage to score, the numbers change but the actual relationship seems far removed, at least to me, from the actions on the field.

But recently reader Brenn Miller e-mailed to let me know he was flying in from Dallas to Nashville to participate in an Aussie Rules football game. Brenn managed to invite me to come out and watch the game.

Interestingly, Brenn wasn't going to be playing against the Nashville team but for the Baton Rouge team. Even though he wasn't actually a member of the Baton Rouge team. Even more interesting, I learned that Nashville had an Aussie Rules football team. Who knew?

Usually I dodge these sort of invitations so I can catch up on shows like Newport Harbor. Particularly when it's over 100 degrees, and writing a column about the event will require me to stand in the sun, sweat and be confused. If I wanted to do this, I could just go to an outdoor wedding.

I also avoid invitations like these because I'm convinced that eventually I'm going to arrive for an event and a passel of fat-armed Florida girls are going to tackle me and then smother me with their ample arm fat. But Brenn informed me that the game was taking place less than a mile from my house. Then he received the endorsement of a law school friend of mine who assured me that Brenn was not trying to wound or maim me and that fat-armed girls from Florida weren't involved.

So I went. I also went because somehow the ClayNation column has become popular in Australia. By "popular," I mean at least 10 people in the past few months have e-mailed to let me know they read in Australia. Which is quite a bit more readers than have ever e-mailed from states such as North or South Dakota, Hawaii and Montana. So I felt like I owed a tip of the beaver pelt in the direction of Australian sports. So here we go, with DDT-style numbering, my introduction to Aussie Rules Football.

        1. I convince my friend Doug to accompany me to the game. Doug is a Georgia grad who hosted me in Athens on the DDT and happened to be visiting last weekend. During high school and college, Doug was the kind of guy who would agree to drive to Canada from anywhere in the continental United States on about 10 minutes notice. Now he's married and has a daughter, and you have to schedule a beer with him nine months, 22 days in advance. You can imagine how shocked I was when he agreed to go watch the game with me, once more for old time's sake, on 10 minutes notice.

        2. We arrive at Nashville's Elmington Park about five minutes before the game is scheduled to start. There are two teams, one clad in blue and the other in yellow. Both teams are jogging around the field. Doug and I contemplate getting out of the car but instead stay inside watching from the air-conditioning. The world seems frighteningly hot outside.

        3. Each team appears to have about 15 total players. Everyone's number ranges from 1-15 or thereabouts except for one large man in yellow who is number 69. This raises the intriguing question: Has any woman ever slept with a man she knew chose the number 69 in a sporting event? How about slept with a man she otherwise wouldn't have because of his number selection? The answer to both of these question has to be no, right?

        4. We exit the car and elect to sit on the opposite side of the field from the PA announcer, in the shade of several trees. It's brutally hot even in the shade. Doug begins to complain about the heat. "(Insert a series of expletives here) heat," he says.

        5. Both teams gather in the center of the field and the Star Spangled Banner is played. All are silent. Then the Australian national anthem is played. I can't really make out the words that well, but all of the players seem to be singing along. Many of the players have Australian accents. If I were Australian my patriotism would be swelling.

I'm going to extrapolate this single bit of knowledge, as only the most committed journalists can, to reach a broad conclusion. Namely, every Australian sings along when the national anthem is played. My primary hypothesis as to why is because otherwise Rupert Murdoch gets right of first refusal to sleep with their wives. My second hypothesis? Non-singers are fed to saltwater crocodiles. See, we're already learning.

        6. The game commences with some sort of jump ball in the center of the field. Then players begin to run pell-mell in every direction. Occasionally someone will dribble the ball (which is oblong and red and resembles a larger football) and at other times booming kicks will soar into the sky. Sometimes these kicks are caught, and other times they aren't. Every now and then there is a whistle. Neither Doug nor I have any idea what's going on. So we decide to take pictures.

        7. My wife just bought us a new camera and I can't figure out how to turn it on. I pass the camera to Doug and after about 10 minutes he says, "I think I know how to make a movie." But we still can't figure out how to take a picture. Meanwhile, on the field, someone just got wrecked. We could hear the thud as he hit the ground in front of us. We expect a fight to ensue, but evidently this hit was legal.

        8. There is a consecutive series of leaping and catching booming kicks, and Doug deduces that when you catch a kicked ball in the air, the referee blows the whistle and you get a free kick. We are impressed by our deduction. Suddenly the whistles make sense. Doug and I are clearly brilliant.

        9. I'm not making this up: A fat guy walks by us carrying a Coors Light tallboy in the open sunlight while wearing a Bad Newz Kennels T-shirt. This is, of course, the name of Michael Vick's kennel. "That guy went to UT," Doug says. "I think he went to Georgia," I say. We debate this for 10 minutes until the guy leaves in a car with Georgia license plates. Doug lowers his head in shame.

        10. Doug asks me whether the NFL restricts Vick from playing Aussie Rules football. We debate how good he might be at the game. We could just as easily be debating how good Vick would be at sword fighting (not the kind that happens in prison).

        11. Some of these kicks are absolutely booming. Going very high and very long. And executed with either the right or left leg while the kicker is running at full speed. From experience I know this is incredibly difficult. Most people couldn't even hit a ball running at full speed and trying to kick it. Much less make solid contact. Attempting these kicks is also incredibly dangerous with all the people running at one another at full speed. Basically, I'm learning that in Aussie Rules football, every play is like running into the kicker.

        12. Other new knowledge: Nashville is the blue team. I learn this after Nashville manages to score six points by kicking the ball through some of the four large poles at either end of the field. After this score the two teams return to the center of the field for a jump ball.

        13. There appears to be some ruling basis to establish legal and illegal contact. What it is, I have no idea. People get decapitated and play continues, people get injured and crawl off the field and play continues. Then play stops and the referee points one way or the other and I didn't see anything happen, but an illegal play has occurred.

        14. Someone runs and attempts to block a kick from an opposing player. This seems incredibly stupid. Taking the Aussie Rules football in the face looks like it would rank right up there with taking a punch from Lennox Lewis. And even if you block it, the ball is still live. You just slow it down ... by using your head as a speed bump. As if to confirm this, one of the guys for Nashville's team takes a ball off the side of his head and collapses to the ground.

If I were playing Aussie Rules, my feet would stay on the ground when any opponent was about to kick.

        15. As a scrum full of diving and tackling men pass in front of us we confirm that at least a few of the players don't appear to be wearing mouth guards. This is the height of stupidity.

When the ball is rolling on the ground is when true danger arrives. Kicks swing perilously close to faces, forearms and shoulders drive each other into the ground, people stand warily around the football, as if they are condemned prisoners hoping not to be selected for execution. Then, mercifully, the ball squirts into the open and someone picks it up without losing all his teeth ... or dying.

        16. We deduce that all passes have to be underhanded and must occur via some method of passing that includes an underhanded tap of the ball. Also, you may move the ball by kicking it at any time, running along and dribbling the ball on the ground, and simply running with the ball. Although we have no idea about how far you can run with the ball. One guy breaks into the open field and we think he's going to keep running into the street. But he doesn't.

        17. The game's scoring system has revealed itself to us. Those four posts in each end zone? We've managed to tell, based on the scoring announcements, that if you make it through the widest of the two poles (but not through the inner two poles), you get one point. But make it through the two poles in the center and you get six points. Suddenly I feel like a true fan because I can tell what the score is going to be before the announcer says anything. This makes me more knowledgeable about Aussie Rules football than most of Southern Cal's "fans" are about college football.

        18. Also, jump balls at the center of the field only occur after six-point scores and not after one-point scores. Nashville, by the way, is leading 33-13 at the end of the first period. Each period is 20 minutes and there are four of them. And at the half (12-minute break) the score is 49-17 Nashville.

I'm not sure whether the clock is constantly running or if it can be paused by the referees for short periods of time, but this game is incredibly fast moving. Players have hardly any time at all to rest, and the ball could literally be heading anywhere on the field. There are no quiet spots.

        19. One of the Nashville players has several children there to watch their dad play. These children are fascinated by the port-a-potty near us. How so? They push themselves up against the door and almost keep their mom locked inside. Once the port-o-potty standoff is complete and the mom emerges, Doug and I contemplate relocating from the shade because we suddenly realize we are sitting on top of a colony of stinging ants. We stand and try to get them out of our clothes. We are unsuccessful.

        20. Perhaps afraid of our sudden erratic movements in the presence of young children, more of the wives and girlfriends of the Nashville players surround us. Just as this happens a Nashville defender makes a bad play and allows an offensive player from Baton Rouge to score an easy six-pointer. The Nashville player's wife yells out, "That's OK, honey." Doug turns to me, "Having your wife tell you it's OK after you screw up in a sport is worse than screwing up in a sport."

         21. I've missed a few points and the score is now 81-37 Nashville. In the process of more points being scored we've learned that a player has to dribble if he runs for more than 15 yards with the football. But this rule seems to be enforced more based on feel than on any rigorous adherence to distance. At least to us.

        22. Also, people are getting wrecked out here. Most of the tackles don't take the players to the ground because once you are being tackled you're supposed to relinquish the football and let other players fight for possession. But even still, the contact in this game is full-speed and intense. The game is fast-paced and not for the squeamish.

        23. Several players fall out around us with cramps. The game has been going at breakneck speed, and Doug and I are both impressed at the conditioning required for the game. The movement is constant like soccer, and the hitting is brutal like American football.

        24. The most athletic players seem to roam the entire field, while the least athletic are more likely to adhere to a particular position on the field (defense or offense). But the most athletic players fly around the field making contested catch after contested catch.

Unlike in American football, where wide receivers are not allowed to be touched until the ball arrives, these Aussie footballers are nailing each other while the ball is in the air.

        25. The game ends with Nashville defeating Baton Rouge 105-43. Brenn comes running over to talk to us. "I can't stay long," he says, "I've got a flight back to Dallas in a couple of hours."

Turns out Brenn flew in that morning from Dallas and then flew back to Dallas a few hours later, the same afternoon of the game, just to play Aussie Rules football for a team he doesn't ordinarily play with.

"The game is great," he says, dripping sweat in the 100-degree heat. It would have to be to make this commitment.

        26. And I have to agree it seems like a pretty cool sport. So cool in fact that I'm planning on trying it out some time in the future. Not with actual Australians, those guys would kill me, but maybe with other people who don't know any better, like me.

At the very least, next time you're drunk in the bar and Aussie Rules football comes on, guess who's going to be the biggest stud in the bar? Well ... not you. But you'll have at least some idea what's going on and you can drunkenly boast about the game and how much you know to everyone around you. And after all, isn't that what sports is really all about?

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