SportsFullCircle

Before reading this article, watch this video first:

This is Australian Rules Football at its finest. What American Football is to the United States Australian Rules Football is to Australia. What the National Football League is to the United States the Australian Football League (AFL) is to Australia.

In Australian Rules Football (more locally known as Aussie Rules Football or simply Footy), there are two teams of 22 players each, of which eighteen are playing on the field and four are interchanges (players on the bench). The playing field is typically oval-shaped; it is at least 150 metres in length (from goal to goal) and at least 135 metres in width (from wing to wing). In the middle of the field lies center square, which is 50 metres on each side; in the middle of center square lies the centre circles, where an Australian Rules Football match begins. On both sides of the field, there are 50-metre lines, which denote the distance away from the centre of the goal.

At each end of the field lie four posts: two behind (outside) posts and two goal (inner) posts. The object of this game is to score the most points (duh), and this is done primarily by kicking the ball through the goal posts, although it is not uncommon for the losing team to score more goals than the winning team. A goal is worth six points in Aussie Rules (same as a touchdown without the extra point in American Football), and it can only be scored on a kick from the attacking team. If the ball goes through the goal posts by any other means (even from a kick by a member of the defending team), it goes as a behind, which is worth one point. A behind can also be scored if the ball goes between a goal post and a behind post, or if the ball hits a goal post (even if it goes through the two goal posts, it still goes as a behind). Sometimes, a behind will be a “rushed behind”, meaning that a defending player deliberately scores a behind for the opposing team to avoid running the risk of the other team scoring a goal. In some leagues, there are no rules against these rushed behinds, but in other leagues, a free kick may be paid (awarded) to the attacking team.

While watching an Australian Rules Football match, unless you analyze the reactions from the fans in the stadium, it will be impossible to tell between which two posts the ball went through. That’s where the Goal Umpire comes in. There are two such umpires: one at each end of the field. The primary job of the goal umpire is to signal goal and behind on scoring plays. A goal umpire signals goal by pointing both of his/her arms in front whereas for signaling a behind, only one arm is pointed in front. The two goal umpires communicate with each other by waving flags after each score so they can keep score.

There are also boundary umpires in Aussie Rules; four are situated all over the field. Their main job is to determine whether or not the ball went out of play. In sports like soccer and basketball, if the ball goes out of bounds off a player, it is awarded to that player’s opposing team. However, in this sport, there is a rather unique rule for out of bounds. In basketball, when the ball goes beyond the out-of-bounds line, but hasn’t touched anything out of bounds yet, it is still in play. In Aussie Rules, if the entire ball goes beyond the boundary line period, it is ruled out of bounds. What happens when the ball goes out of bounds in Aussie Rules? It depends. If the ball is kicked by a player, and it does not touch anything before going out of bounds, it is considered “out of bounds on the full”, and a free kick is awarded to the player’s opposing team. If the ball goes out by any other means (not deliberately), it is just considered “out of bounds”, and a boundary umpire will throw the ball back in (regardless of who touched the ball last). If the field or boundary umpire declares that the ball went out in a deliberate manner against a player, it is treated as “out of bounds on the full”, and a free kick is awarded to that player’s opposing team. If the ball hits a behind post, it is considered to be out of bounds (may or may not be on the full). A common misconception of the game is to believe that a player is out of bounds when he/she steps on the boundary line; in fact, a player can step beyond that boundary line, but must not bring the ball over the line with him/her to keep play alive.

There are other technicalities in Australian Rules Football like the types of tackling allowed (e.g. not allowed to even touch an opposing player in the back), but those will not be discussed here. Marking, however, will be. A mark in Aussie Rules is basically a catch of the ball after it is kicked by a player and not touched by anybody else or the ground; the ball also has to travel more than fifteen metres. When a player takes a mark (catches the ball), the umpire will blow the whistle to pay the mark (say the mark was made), and the player is allowed a set shot (free kick) at the spot where he/she took the mark. Alternatively, the player can choose to forgo the set shot and elect to play on.

In an Aussie Rules match, there are four quarters, where each quarter lasts twenty minutes; a siren denotes the start and end of each quarter. The twenty minutes is NOT running time, so a quarter might take around a half hour to complete. The unusual aspect about the time clock in this game is that nobody on the field (players as well as the spectators) knows exactly how much time is left in a quarter; the clock in the stadium counts up from zero and does not stop until the siren sounds. However, the coaches have access to the actual clock and typically have to tell the players how much time is left. Viewers at home can see the actual clock too, but there is one exception: on Australia’s Channel Ten, there is a “Five-Minute Warning”, where the actual clock turns into the elapsed clock when there are five minutes left in the 4th quarter (so whereas on TV, where you see 5:00 4th beneath the scores, the 5:00 4th will change into xx:xx 4th, where xx:xx is the elapsed time since the start of the 4th quarter). Other channels will just show the actual clock all the way so viewers at home will know when the siren will sound. When a close match is shown on Channel Ten, and the match is within the Five-Minute Warning, the viewers at home are almost as uncertain about how much time is left as the players and spectators at the match are (except the viewers at home will know at what elapsed time the five-minute warning occurred, so they have a better idea of when the siren will sound).

Now comes the exciting part of Australian Rules Football: near the end of a close match. It is not very common (but also not rare) to see a kick after the final siren in an Australian Rules Football match. However, this can happen when a player is awarded a free kick by any means (taking a mark, penalty, or kicking the ball out on the full) and is within scoring range. In that case, the siren will NOT signal the end of the match quite yet, but the player with the ball CANNOT play on. He/she must kick for goal, and any points from the kick will be counted towards the final score (and this doesn’t have to be just the fourth quarter). Sometimes, the free kick will win the game for the player’s team; other times it won’t. But either way, it is the equivalent of a buzzer beater in basketball, a last-second field goal in football, or a penalty shot with no time on the clock in hockey. Sometimes, the kick after the siren may tie the score, and there are rules in Footy regarding tied scores at full time (but draws will not be discussed in this article).

This concludes my introduction to the sport of Australian Rules Football…actually I forgot to add that a player must bounce the ball after running every fifteen metres with it. The sport may be bizarre to most Americans as well as to people from other parts of the world, but hopefully after reading this article, you now have a better idea of the rules to the game. That said and done, here is the same video that I asked you to watch before reading this article (feel free to read the background information below before watching the video again):

In this video, the Geelong Cats and the Sydney Swans were playing for a spot in the Preliminary Final (played before the Super Bowl of Australian Rules Football: the Grand Final) in 2005. The Cats led the Swans at three-quarter time 6.11 (47) to 3.12 (30). The Cats scored a goal to go up 53 to 30 early in the fourth quarter, but four goals by Sydney’s Nick Davis sent the Swans into the Preliminary Final against the St. Kilda Saints. The Swans ended up beating St. Kilda by 31 points 15.6 (96) to 9.11 (65) and played the West Coast Eagles in the Grand Final. Thanks to a mark by Leo Barry (#21 for Sydney seen at the end of the video) moments before the final siren, the Swans held on to beat the Eagles 8.10 (58) to 7.12 (54). It was the longest Premiership drought at the time; the Swans had gone 72 years before finally winning a premiership (and it was their first in the AFL). Unfortunately for Sydney, they met West Coast in the Grand Final again the following year and ended up losing to the Eagles by a single point 12.13 (85) to 12.12 (84); it was West Coast’s third premiership in club history. Despite the heartbreaking loss in the 2005 Semi-Final to Sydney, the Cats ended up winning the AFL Premiership every other year starting in 2007.