When I knew I was going to visit Australia and its surrounding nations one of the most appealing opportunities I hoped to have was to experience the most enjoyed sporting events in the region. I am a big sports fan back home in Chapel Hill, rooting on my Tar Heels in various sports, especially basketball! I expected to experience a region who shared a lot of the same sports that we do in America like basketball, baseball, soccer, and golf. It is true that these sports are huge in Australia and the surrounding areas and are gaining more and more participants, but I was surprised to realize there were many different sports that I am not quite familiar with. In this post I want to focus on my fascination with these unique sports and stray away from American ideas that you guys already know a lot about. I will start with one of the most popular sports in Australia in both participation and in spectators.
Australian Rules Football
When I first landed in Sydney on my trip to the Oceania region one of the first things I noticed upon getting off the airplane was an advertisement for the AFL (Australian Football League). I instantly was surprised that Australia had a football league, but a local “Aussie” quickly informed me that Australian Rules Football was defiantly not like your “American” football, he said it was “More physical, more exciting, and defiantly more fun”. I am a big fan of football back home and I knew I wanted to learn a lot more about football, Australian style. I bought tickets to a local Sydney Swans match. After sitting through that game I defiantly had to agree that Australian Football is a tough sport to play. In my opinion is a mix of soccer, rugby, and American football, except you cant throw the ball. The object of the game is to score by kicking a ball through goalposts. My favorite aspect of the game is seeing players gate down the field while bouncing the oddly shaped ball.
Rugby
Perhaps the most widely watched competitive sport in Oceania is Rugby. I knew of the sport when I first traveled to Australia, but I will be the first to admit that I knew very little about it. Traveling around Australia has only made me more curious about Rugby. I attended a few matches in both Australia and in New Zealand. It is a rough sport; all the players are lightning fast and strong as oxen. In some ways it resembles American football but it is defiantly more violent and ruthless. The games are very entertaining to watch (Take a look at the video to see for yourself). I recently watched a match with some local guys and a few of my friends in a pub, they all said their particular team was going to win the “Grand Final” (Sort of like our Super Bowl), for the right to play the European Champion for the “World Cup Challenge”.
Sports in Papua New Guinea
After learning about Australia’s famous sports culture I was curious to know if the population of Micronesia and Papua New Guinea was just as passionate. During my visit to Papua New Guinea I did not feel the passion I felt in Australia for sports, but people took their respective sport very seriously. Rugby is by far the most important and popular sport in New Guinea, along with Australian influences of Soccer and Aussie Rules Football. One sport that is really popular that surprised me was Cricket. This can be attributed to the British colonial imprint on the region. Throughout my trip I noticed kids playing sports of all kinds branching from all cultures and parts of the world. I think that sports is a great example of the globalized world that we now live.
Works Cited
http://www.nrl.com/
http://www.afl.com.au/
http://www.ombac.org/ombac_rugby/rulesofrugby.htm
Pictures and Video
http://www.steadyburn.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/australianrugby.jpg
http://myee.org/footybig.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZoq9FHfWwQ
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