The Rules of Footy

Australian Rules Football is an oxymoron. From all indications there ARE no rules in Australian Rules Football. Played with a bigger, softer, similar shaped ball it appears that the object of the game is to kill the player with the ball. Where American Football is slow and there is a whistle signaling the end of the play when someone breaks a fingernail, ARF is fast paced and manly. The players are unencumbered by those pesky helments and pads, and wear shorts and a muscle shirt. Good thing too, because there are muscles galore!
Sam came home from school a few weeks ago very excited about having "discovered" Australian Rules Football and proclaimed it "super fun". He asked if we could buy one so he could practice for the interschool sporting event that was coming up for which he signed up to play ARF. Great, and here we are in a foreign country with a $100,000 deductible on our health care coverage.

Being the cautious and discerning Mom that I am, I immediately went out and bought a "footy". (Australians abbreviate EVERYTHING!) Well, playing with the footy has run rampant through our house, with all of us participating. To toss the footy around, you either serve it underhand like a volleyball, or you kick it with the top of your foot so you can direct where it's going to go. Footy's don't bounce like American footballs either, because they are more rounded on the ends. And, a footy is never thrown over hand with your fingers on the laces like in America. We have two fully empty rooms in our house until our container arrives with our things from America so Sam, Lucas and Camerin toss the footy around in one of those rooms to blow off some energy. It's dark here by 5:30 p.m. as we move headlong into winter, so I'm thankful they have somewhere to kick the footy around.

Sam's interschool sporting event took place and his class lost, but he had good fun. He discovered most of his classmates play ARF much as our kids play soccer, so they were good. But hey, no worries, mate! Just kill the guy with the ball!