Australian Rules Football - Open Thread

May 9, 2009 at 3:37 PM
6 comments

Haven't been arsed to do the weekly tips column of late as I've just been too busy (e.g. writing this on a mental break from studying legal articles about government contracting) so thought I'd attempt some discussion through an open thread. Some topics for consideration:

Our northern hemisphere friends may like to ask "what's it all about anyway?" and/or "what makes Australian Rules football so different from other sports"? or even more contentiously "what the hell is meant by the 'holding the ball' rule?".
Essendon confounded expectations by beating 2008 premiers Hawthorn by 44 points last night. Does this mean the Hawks are out of it or are they likely to finish the season strongly? What about the Bombers - are they genuine finals contenders?
Should the AFL stick to its plan to expand into western Sydney or stick to what could be a "safer" market through the option presented by the Tasmanian government and vocal Taswegian supporters?

6 comments

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Australian Rules Football
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Comments

[this is good]

I LOVE Australian rules football!! I live in the states, and just discovered it on one of our independent tv stations. For years, I tried to get into Ameican football, but it just doesn't appeal to me. But when I saw an Aussie game a few weeks back, i was hooked right from the start! I am just now learning about all the rules, and just happened to be browsing through VOX, and here you are! So glad found you!!!

Great to hear you're into it and welcome to the group. It's been a little quiet here of late because a) I don't have as much time as I'd like nowadays and b) I sort of felt like things were dropping off in terms of interest.

This coming weekend is the very last round of the regular season before the finals start with eight teams trying to make it to the end. Your interest comes at a good time as it's been one of the better seasons of recent times, and it looks like there are at least three teams with a very good chance of winning the comp.

I'm thinking about doing an end of season post after this weekend so stay tuned, and I hope you continue to enjoy the sport.

Great! Look forward to reading your comments......C:

Where can I find a good source for basic rules of the game (from an Ozzie perspective, of course)?

Sure thing. Best place to start is the league's homepage, then from there you can go to this page which then has links to the history of the game and the rules (with a pdf doc plus some explanatory videos).

Naturally, wikipedia has a good overview of the game plus you can check out a bunch of links here as well. Hope this is of some use to you.