Sydney Swans, the size of the world, and the Mexican Revolution

Is it any wonder that Australian Rules Football shares nearly all its distinct traits with a kangaroo?

I’m not talking about having a tree-trunk tail or a penchant for being impaled by Aboriginal spears, although that would certainly up the ante. I’m talking about the basics: the kicking, the punching, the bouncing. All the actions people on the east side of the Pacific love kangaroos for — as opposed to the Australia, where they just love to eat them.

My internship in the States last summer allowed me a momentary glimpse into the underground world of the Portland Power, a local Aussie Rules Football club. But the vague, over-the-phone hints of bounding pigskins and marsupial mannerisms left me perplexed and, quite honestly, intrigued. So when I learned that I could attend an ARF game in Sydney, I chomped at the bit, eagerly looking past cuddling with koalas and toward the sport that had gripped the reigns of my imagination.

While probably unfamiliar to most ‘seppos’ — five bucks to whomever can figure out why Americans earned that name — Aussie Rules Football carries the same weight in Australia as the NBA, NHL, or, sadly, NASCAR carry back home. Granted, ARF can’t hold a candle to rock-’em, sock-’em rugby matches on the mainland, but from the southern swath to the Tasmanian hinterlands, this is the game to be watched.

And what a game it is.

I had the fortune of attending my first Aussie Football League match on Saturday, with a cheap bus ride followed by an equally cheap ticket landing me at the Sydney Swans contest against the Freemantle Dockers. As the Sydney Cricket Grounds stadium opened up, the emerald field sprawled as an oversized circle of grass. The field was pinched on two sides by eight multi-story posts, looking like hair-picks penetrating a giant green afro, and only a few chalk-lines to speak of.

But it wasn’t the massive expanse of the field that caught my eye. Nor was it the scarf-wearing, beanie-sated crowd. Nor, even, was it the pair of homemade, VW Beetle-sized pom-poms our neighbors had brought.

What caught my eye was exactly what I had set out for: the game.

Wielding the oblong, overly-inflated football, the ref began the match with the least traditional jump-ball I’d ever seen: Instead of tossing the ball high and straight, he ricocheted the balloon off the ground and into the air for the “ruckman,” or Aussie Yao Mings, to snag.



After the unorthodox beginning, it didn’t take to formulate the idea for this column, vis-á-vis comparing ARF to the ’roo. Unlike rugby or gridiron, ARF ball movement between teammates employs throwing as often as John McCain listens to Jay-Z. Therefore, the players resort to actions usually reserved for the star of the smash film Kangaroo Jack. The most common methods of sharing are punching or kicking — two styles of martial arts that feral kangaroos are best known for.

Furthermore, if the ball-carrier is forced to take more than an allotted amount of steps, he must resort to the kangaroos’ mode of transport: bouncing (the ball, not himself).

But just like the Mariners' front office, the game has some kinks to work out. Not only could no one tell me exactly how much time was in a quarter — ranging from 28-32 minutes, it’s apparently at the timekeeper’s discretion — and the trainers/waterboys/calf-massagers felt the need to show they could run more than those they were helping. The entire game, these staff members scurried around the field, distributing water bottles and medical tape in the middle of the contest and, since they were all about seven feet shorter than the athletes, resembling pesky, distracting gnats.

Aside from those annoying little people, the amalgamation of soccer, basketball, football, and marsupial all blended to create a free-flowing, highly-physical spectacle that brought me up to speed on what the Power guys were actually talking about. From the booming, no-look kicks splitting the uprights, to Sydney’s main enforcer — who must have been Ed Norton’s body-double in American History X — throwing his weight (and elbows) around, the entire, three-hour length contest was remarkable.

That night Sydney overcame a late deficit to down the Dockers, cementing their spot in the Top Four of the Aussie Football League and searing the similarities between ARF and kangaroos in my mind.

Because when you come to think of it, gnats annoy kangaroos too, don’t they?

On a completely unrelated note, here’s your ‘The World Is Smaller Than A Yankees Fan’s IQ’ Moment of the Day: After being seated at the AFL match, I noticed I was in the same row as Noah from Phoenix, whom I had met a couple nights earlier while scarfing down some potato bake. With him sat two girls who we included in the conversation. And as a microcosm of the topsy-turvy world in which we live in — a world in which Brett Favre is a Jet and people actually went to see The Mummy 3— Elizabeth from Atlanta revealed that not only had she nearly moved to Portland in fifth grade, but she was accepted to and ready to attend Catlin Gabel (which I attended for high school). Unfortunately, her asthmatic brother, the initial cause of their move from smog-laden Atlanta, couldn’t squeeze into the meager class sizes, so Elizabeth and I never got the chance to meet.

Until we sat next to each other, some six years later.

In a different hemisphere.

In the same row, at the same AFL game, with only one mutual friend between us and neither of us willing to shell out five bucks for a hot dog.

What a crazy world.

On another side note, we found this statue on the way to the game:



Looks like Mexican Revolution war hero Benito Juarez knows how to party.