Are Aussies REALLY like that?

[ManlyUsername]

I know you can really annoy an Aussie by starting an explanation of Australian rules football (to another American who had never seen it) with the phrase, "at first glance, it looks a lot like rugby"

 

[Rustyoznail]

I know you can really annoy an Aussie by starting an explanation of Australian rules football (to another American who had never seen it) with the phrase, "at first glance, it looks a lot like rugby"

Oi! Mate, don’t give me that shit! The only similarity is the players average IQ matches the average points scored in each game.

 

[ManlyUsername]

Oi! Mate, don’t give me that shit! The only similarity is the players average IQ matches the average points scored in each game.

I got a very similar response the first time I said it...lol

 

[oggbashan]

The injury rate in Aussie Rules is much higher than in Rugby, but players have to be carried off the field before they consent to be treated.

Aussie Rules players are tough and dedicated.

 

[ManlyUsername]

The injury rate in Aussie Rules is much higher than in Rugby, but players have to be carried off the field before they consent to be treated.

Aussie Rules players are tough and dedicated.

Agreed.

And just so no one gets the wrong idea, I also fully agree that Aussie Football is NOTHING like Rugby. In fact I started my description that way because I knew it would get a rise out of our Australian friends at the time, but I stand by my statement.

To the average American who has seen very little Rugby, and Never seen Aussie Football, if you show them 10 seconds of a game and asked them what the sport is they would probably say Rugby.

Grass field; Shorts, Jerseys and cleats, no protective gear; a ball that looks like a stubby version of an American Football. The similarity ends there, but visually, to the uninitiated, similar.

 

[oggbashan]

For American Football, or Rugby, if a fan yells 'Kill him! he doesn't really mean it. In Aussie Rules, he might be serious.

If you show an American the injuries sustained in an average Aussie Rules match, he would conclude Aussies are mad psychopaths and have never heard of health and safety. Anything goes in Aussie Rules.

 

[ManlyUsername]

If you show an American the injuries sustained in an average Aussie Rules match, he would conclude Aussies are mad psychopaths.

Well to be fair, they wouldn't really be wrong

 

[ElectricBlue]

I know you can really annoy an Aussie by starting an explanation of Australian rules football (to another American who had never seen it) with the phrase, "at first glance, it looks a lot like rugby"

Being of Brit heritage where the only true football is the round one, I've always referred to Aussie Rules football as "fairies in the meadow", "always walking backwards to Christmas," or "how many people do you need on a field to kick a ball?"

Understandably, the die-hards don't like that. I find the whole thing unbelievably tedious. The one plus about covid was getting fucking footie off the front page of the newspaper. Not a fan.

 

[oggbashan]

In 1960, my Australian High School had a visit from an American High School's American Football team.

Their coach watched our Aussie Rules team playing against local rivals and said "No way are my students doing that."

We had just started a Rugby 15 and weren't very good - in fact we were so bad that our results do not appear in the school's records until eight years later when Rugby was started again. He said," We can give that a try." His team took the field in their full armour. Our players had no armour at all and ran rings around them, winning at Rugby (our only win of the 1960 season) and at American Football. We were faster and fitter perhaps because our coach was an Olympic Gold Medallist from the 1956 Olympics.

They watched our parallel girls' school play lacrosse and decided even trying to play Aussie girls was too dangerous...


But when he took his team to watch a professional Aussie Rules game the letters home from his students about that match caused a furore back in the States. His decision not to try Aussie Rules was accepted as entirely sensible.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Being of Brit heritage where the only true football is the round one, I've always referred to Aussie Rules football as "fairies in the meadow", "always walking backwards to Christmas," or "how many people do you need on a field to kick a ball?"

Understandably, the die-hards don't like that. I find the whole thing unbelievably tedious. The one plus about covid was getting fucking footie off the front page of the newspaper. Not a fan.

EB, EB, EB... Maaate... Really? You reckon a game where a nil-all draw is celebrated is exciting?

I bet you still get nostalgic over Watneys Red Barrel...

 

[ElectricBlue]

EB, EB, EB... Maaate... Really? You reckon a game where a nil-all draw is celebrated is exciting?

I bet you still get nostalgic over Watneys Red Barrel...

I find most organised sport tedious, to be honest, always have, always will. The only bit of the Olympics I watched were the 200 and 400 swim finals won by Ariarne Titmus. I'm a sports luddite .

 

[YDB95]

As an American living in Australia (and now a dual citizen), I was skeptical at first too. But the answer is yes, that is what they're like.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I find most organised sport tedious, to be honest, always have, always will. The only bit of the Olympics I watched were the 200 and 400 swim finals won by Ariarne Titmus. I'm a sports luddite .

You just like her name.

 

[Thefireflies]

Mate, I know we write fiction but no one would believe that. Total bullshit.
Oh, wait…

Maybe it will be a non-fiction essay, that way no one has to maintain the suspension of disbelief, where history is full of examples of major incompetence at the very top.

I know you can really annoy an Aussie by starting an explanation of Australian rules football (to another American who had never seen it) with the phrase, "at first glance, it looks a lot like rugby"

Apparently American football is derived from Rugby. America even won Rugby gold medals at the 1920 and 1924 Olympics, both against France.
Aussie rules is starting to head in the same direction as Rugby Union by increasingly becoming an ‘elite’ private school sport rather than the every-man’s game. Meanwhile, Rugby League, or thugby league, is still very much the working class’ game in Qld and NSW. For this reason some who make the higher levels of politics carefully cultivate an image they are major rugby league fans, or sports fans in general, to appeal to the working classes.

EB, EB, EB... Maaate... Really? You reckon a game where a nil-all draw is celebrated is exciting?

When I wonder why soccer never took off here, despite being introduced early on, I’m reminded why after watching the game for 90+ minutes, only to have it decided by a penalty shoot-out!

I find most organised sport tedious, to be honest, always have, always will. The only bit of the Olympics I watched were the 200 and 400 swim finals won by Ariarne Titmus. I'm a sports luddite .

Ariarne’s great, but Emma McKeon’s the greatest! Literally our greatest athlete!

 

[ElectricBlue]

You just like her name.

Yep. Ariarne. Sounds like someone from a Greek myth (you'll notice what I did there, Rusty) .

 

[SamScribble]

EB, EB, EB... Maaate... Really? You reckon a game where a nil-all draw is celebrated is exciting?

I had the good fortune to grow up on the Gloucestershire-Oxfordshire border where the round ball was seldom seen. Also, our 'school game' was rugby union. Being relatively tall as a child, I was immediately put into the second row. And so it was that I had my first competitive game and my first serious injury on the same day.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Yep. Ariarne. Sounds like someone from a Greek myth (you'll notice what I did there, Rusty) .

Oh, ha ha, you wanker. If you have to explain it, then it's really just a bad dad joke...

 

[Emirus]

Whenever I hear about Aussie Rules I can’t help but think of Paul Hogan.

 

[Emirus]

We'll take the piss on a regular basis (now that LAdawg knows the meaning) but will slap you on the back, buy you a beer, and call you maaate.

Our actors do the best American accents, which is why they're all in the best movies these days, and even Meryl Streep couldn't get the Oz accent right. Our music rocks, and

we still have Kylie Minogue.

Taking the piss only has one meaning to an American, to urinate. They don’t really seem to have an American alternative to the second meaning.

American actors who can do foreign accents? Give me a couple of years and I’m sure I’ll think of one. I’ve never seen the film Braveheart but I understand Mel Gibson can do a brilliant Scottish accent?

I heard Pete Waterman, of Stock Aitken Waterman, tell the story of his first meeting with Kylie (it’s the sign of having made it when people know who you are just by the mention of your first name) when she came to make her first record, I should be so lucky, with them. He got in the lift with this petite schoolgirl and asked if she was visiting someone. She told him she was there to make a record and when he asked who with she told him it was with him. Might not be completely true but it’s a good anecdote.

 

[RetroFan]

The injury rate in Aussie Rules is much higher than in Rugby, but players have to be carried off the field before they consent to be treated.

Aussie Rules players are tough and dedicated.

I've actually got an Australian Rules Football game in one of my stories. In the story a skinny gamer nerd who is terrible at sports swaps bodies with his popular twin sister's jock boyfriend, who is great at Australian Rules Football (and other sports) but not very bright.

Despite now inhabiting the body of the handsome, tall, fit and muscular jock boyfriend, the nerd is as bad as sports as ever, which presents a real problem when he attempts to play Australian Rules Football in his stead - against a violent team from a really bad area in front of a hostile crowd full of bikies, bogans and inhabitants of some seedy public housing flats. Needless to say everything that can go wrong does go wrong, and the team is thrashed by their inhospitable opponents.

This was probably the most fun I've ever had writing a story in all my years on the site.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Okay, drop bears have a new rival

Cute little critter, but read on. This tough little thing rips the heads of mice, then shags himself to death.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08...urviving-in-burnt-queensland-forest/100383310

 

[Rustyoznail]

Cute little critter, but read on. This tough little thing rips the heads of mice, then shags himself to death.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08...urviving-in-burnt-queensland-forest/100383310

Holy snapping duck poo Batman! They’re a nasty little shit, aren’t they?

 

[PennameWombat]

<snip>To the average American who has seen very little Rugby, and Never seen Aussie Football, if you show them 10 seconds of a game and asked them what the sport is they would probably say Rugby.

I’m an American who now lives in Australia. But in 1981 I was a college student, sharing a house with two other guys. The local cable TV company had just reached our area and was offering a huge discount for the first year. We signed up.

One of the channels was a then-unknown network called Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (yeah, ESPN). They lacked the rights to any significant live US sports and when they looked around for something to fill three prime-time Friday evening hours someone made a long distance phone call to Melbourne and something called the VFL. I’m guessing that the US rights likely cost them a couple of cases of beer.

So, June, (US summer), 1982. I for some reason was at home on a Friday. Nothing better to do I was flipping through our brand new selection of 32 channels and found ESPN.

And a sport, if I can call it that, which defied belief or description in my tiny, little parochial mind.

But one thing I definitely knew, it was not any code of rugby. But maybe I was a cheater, despite being born and growing up in America and having by then not travelled abroad, I was familiar with rugby. I’d even played the sport a bit (union, but knew league existed). So maybe I don’t count.

I told my roommates, and through much of the summer and into fall we had a bunch of friends and acquaintances who heard about this “Aussie Rules Insanity”. None of us could find Essendon, Hawthorn, Carlton, Collingwood or Fitzroy on any of our Australian maps so that was a bit of mystery. After a couple of weeks ESPN must’ve figured out that it was getting good numbers all over so they started preceding each match with a thirty minute intro to the rules and other basics.

I think we had like twenty people for the Grand Final crowded into our basement rec room.

Apparently American football is derived from Rugby. America even won Rugby gold medals at the 1920 and 1924 Olympics, both against France.

On the latter, when Rugby (in the Sevens form) returned to the summer Olympics in 2016, the US was indeed the ‘defending’ champion

As to American Football, it originally derived much impetus from soccer (London football association rules). From the 1860s until the 1880s the various universities in the northeast where it developed started from something like soccer with rugby-style tackling (goals were scored like in soccer, but players could be physically tackled) then absorbed more rugby rules. They adopted the ‘try’ (calling it a touchdown, because Americans are very literal; the word ‘try’ remains in the NFL rule book to this day to refer to the attempt for points after a touchdown via kicking or a play from scrimmage. As does the Fair Catch Free Kick (taking a mark), although it’s rarely invoked, last successful one was 1976; last couple attempted 2013 and 2019.)

What generally happened was each university had its own variation on the rules and the tradition was ‘home team rules,’ you played under the specific rules for the host. But often they agreed to split, either one half or to salve travel times play two games, one under each team’s set of rules. Fans took to the more ‘rugby’ oriented styles and more universities and athletic clubs morphed to those.

The line of scrimmage, hiking the ball to put it into play, blocking (interfering) all accreted through the 1880s. As did needing to make so many yards in a set number of downs (originally five yards in three downs, now ten yards in four downs) to keep possession. The number of points for each element varied and has evolved over the years.

But the forward pass didn’t become legal until 1906.

 

[PennameWombat]

Cute little critter, but read on. This tough little thing rips the heads of mice, then shags himself to death.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08...urviving-in-burnt-queensland-forest/100383310

And I always thought a praying mantis male having his head torn off and eaten by the female and that not even stopping him as he was fucking her was hard core.

 

[ElectricBlue]

And once again, cute Aussie critters are deceptive

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10...threatened-marsupial-found-at-uluru/100574354

It is small, cute and furry – but the brush-tailed mulgara, a carnivorous marsupial related to the Tasmanian devil, is known for sucking the brains out of its prey...