Fremantle Dockers Footy Game!

The Saturday after Cottesloe (as in, the next day) we went to our first footy game! This is Australian rules football, I think. I'm pretty sure that they are the same but to be honest I could be completely confused. It is one of the 3 sports that I don't really know what is going on but they are on in our common room all the time. Guess that is what happens when you live with a bunch of Europeans and only get Australian channels. Yes, this means that unless we pay online we cannot see the American Football games. *deep-sigh that is only partially sarcastic...

Anyway, this is roughly how the game is played. There are two teams. Four goal posts at each side (so there are three field goal looking things on each side). The one in the middle is worth 6 points if the footy ball goes through it and the two on either side of it are worth only one point each. In order to get the points they have to kick the ball - like a field goal but it is just during play, no special set up, they can kick from anywhere. The ball can be passed (it kind of looks like they are punching it to a teammate) or kicked to get down the GIGANTIC oval field to the side that they want it on. If your teammate catches one that was kicked to him there is a time limit (like 3sec) before the other team can basically attack/block him - it's like a bonus 'yay you caught it' kind of thing. They don't wear any padding and it is VIOLENT. It is speedy like soccer, tackling kind of like football, and the checking of hockey...there was a fist fight like 3min in. But they fights aren't encouraged because you can lose playing privileges in some cases. All of the players are in really good shape. It's crazy. Fremantle's team is really good and they won that night. Oh, and they are purple and white so it reminded me of DHS football games haha it was even a white out that night! And I actually got to wear white instead of a band uniform :)

 This is the pre-game show thing like they have at baseball games.

 This is Hakan (the one making the face at me) and Julian and their reactions to my questions about how the game is played. Now that I think about it Hakan gives me that look a lot...

 From L to R. Jen, Rachel, Regina (FROM OHIO) and Tasha. We attempted to figure out the game together, got hot crisps, and cheered together.

It's hard to see but these are the players - I only had my ipod for pictures so I couldn't zoom - they look farther away from us than they actually were. The blue head on the right side is a guy from Notre Dame in Indiana. They got really into it. Even though it was the wrong color...

Going to the game was organised by the Study Abroad office so we had really good seats (so it was good when they were on our side of the field but we literally couldn't see what was happening on the other side - good thing they have the big TV things). We (Cleo's, Port Lodge, and P&O) were the first 5 rows closest to the field behind one of the goals. It was really fun learning about the game and getting into the spirit of it but the take away message (that's what my Health Psych prof tells us is on each slide in the presentation) was that the hot crisps (french fries) were ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. So so so so delicious. Best part of the game was that we (the Study Abroad) section started the wave that lasted 6x around the WHOLE SOLD-OUT STADIUM!!!! It was so cool!