Aussie Rules Football

One minute I was playing golf with the regular Sat. ladies group, and the next thing I knew I was given a member's pass to the first season game of the Perth Eagles Football Club. It's a very big deal here and it starts at the commuter train station outside of Perth. Everyone was awash in blue and gold, and all had their members' tags hanging around their necks, which also gets them a free ride into the stadium . I wore my Canada T-shirt so I would have license to ask stupid questions, and besides that, I don't have anything blue and gold.

Aussie Rules football is a pretty unique game which seems to contain parts of many other games: basketball "jump balls", rugby lateral passes, football mauling (without pads) and baseball dugouts where the players spend their time when not running around a field the size of P.E.I. Coaches are ensconced in air conditioned boxes and use neon-green clad messengers to run plays (or admonitions) out to the players. There doesn't seem to be many time outs and at any one moment, you may have the green messengers, water boys, and 36 players milling around.

One of Perth's best players scored a goal in the second half and immediately crumpled to the ground clutching his groin. The first guy out there was apparently responsible for removing the hand from the groin, in deference to the large TV audience. After that, they loaded him on a stretcher and carted him away - out for the next 10 weeks. The Eagles eventually subdued the No. Melborne Kangaroos and won by 4 points, overall a pretty exciting afternoon.