My First Footy Game!

Saturday night Simon, Ryan, Ben, his girlfriend Lauren, Ben's friend (John) Woody, and I went to the MCG dome to watch a footy (Australian Rules Football) match between Collingwood and Hawthorn. All the footy teams are historically from the various neighborhoods of Melbourne. The differences between footy and the NFL are insane. The footy field is like 2 or 3x the size of an NFL football field. In footy they don't wear pads, the average build is lean and muscular (so everyone is built like a wide receiver), they spend most of the time kicking the ball, and there isn't as much tackling- more like bodies clashing mid air. The ball progresses down the field in two ways: you either kick it (think punting) or hold the ball in one hand and punch it out with the other. At the end of the field are four posts: the two outside posts are shorter than the ones on the inside and if you kick it (the ball must be kicked in order to score) in between the two middle posts its worth 6 points (and loud raucous cheering), if you kick it in between the outside posts its only worth one point (and silence from the crowd if you're lucky...booing if you're not). It has four quarters like a football game and lasts about two hours. We had a lot of fun...it was mainly simon, ryan, and me watching the game. The other three got cold (it was probably about 50 degrees...) so they stayed in the bar area. Hawthorn (yellow and brown) completely stomped Collington (black and white) like 100-something to 50-something. I ate half a meat pie and Ryan and Ben bought me a Collingwood scarf (they thought i would like the colors better). I would love to go to another game!