footy not footsie

Aussie Rules Football aka "Footy". Going to a footy game was on my Melbourne must-do list, and it definitely proved to be worthwhile. Before the game, a few of us packed a picnic of chicken wraps, pasta salad, and Tim Tams and headed over to South Bank to picnic beside the Yarra River. The skyline of Melbourne CBD (Central Business District) was the perfect backdrop for our picnic.


After the picnic, we went to the Telstra Dome for the game! It was Carlton vs. Essendon, and since Uni Melb is in Carlton, we became automatic Carlton fans. We picked up "Goal!" and "Super Goal!" signs in Carlton blue and white colors, and got our faces painted with blue and white stripes. You never would've guessed we were footy virgins.

After some hypothesizing and asking the hard core footy fans sitting next to us, we finally began to understand what we were watching. Each team has 18 guys on the field at a time. They are allowed to move the ball either by punching it (a hand ball) or kicking it (more like punting). If a player runs with the ball for more than 10 m, they must bounce it once. There are 4 goal posts at each end of the field. If you're within the 50 m line, kicking the ball through the center posts gets you 6 points and kicking it through the side posts gets 1 point. A super goal is when the ball is kicked through the center posts from outside the 50 m line.

The footy players definitely impressed me. It's a brutal game involving zero pads. I was amazed with the acuity of their kicks, flying leaps to catch the ball, and uniform of short shorts. Carlton won! So they move on in the cup and play their next game on Saturday. Hopefully I'll be in the crowd again!