Australian Football
Why Australia’s ‘imperfect’ game is the perfect spectacle
‘Aussie Rules Footy’ or, AFL, is one of the most unique sports in the world. The thing is, it’s not perfect, which is why we think it might just be the best spectator sport on the planet. Here’s why…
It’s one of the oldest sports in the world, and might be even older than we know if we’re to take in the game of Marn Grook the Indigenous peoples of Australia played, which is commonly said to have helped influence the shape of what would become Australian Rules Football in the mid 19th Century. How long it was played before European settlement is still a question historians love to ponder, but whichever way its genesis came about, it is nothing if not unique.
While we’re not here to work out its muddied origins, we’re definitely here to explain just why this is a game you should take a peek at, no matter where in the world you’re from, and we say that as both purveyors and players as well as outright fans. Because Aussie Rules’ controlled chaos and its ever-ensuing heartache and cheer might make it the best spectacle -- from a sporting perspective -- in the world.
Round 22, 2023 Carlton Vs Melbourne
Bear with us here for a minute.
There’s less than 90 seconds left to play in the fourth quarter. The Carlton Football Club -- one of the oldest in the land -- is ahead of the Melbourne Football Club -- the actual *oldest, and one of the world’s first established clubs in what is now commonly referred to as the AFL, among other sports -- by a mere five points. (*We’re talking 1858 here folks, by the way.)
The pressure from both sides is manic, but the Demons or, ‘Dees’ (Melbourne), is attacking in its front half. This means the ‘Blues’ (Carlton) and its defence -- an almost makeshift backline crafted out of necessity due to a run of injury throughout the season -- is being challenged like it hasn't been before. But it’s holding its nerve with myriad so-called 'role players' doing just that -- playing their role. By this point of the season the Blues have won seven on the trot and is forcing its way into finals contention.
In the stands or ‘bleachers’, as it might be referred to in different regions and in other codes, the 68,500-plus strong crowd is roaring in an electrifying display of what makes this unique sport so… unique.
“Baaaaallll!” they all scream at different moments as tackle after tackle is laid and tired, muscular bodies are driven into the turf over and over. The umpires, however, acknowledging a great contest, put away their whistles and the ball ping pongs about, ever in dispute.
The scene is ferocious.
Enter Melbourne's Christian Petracca (also a Red Bull athlete), one of the game’s best midfielders (a ‘contested beast’, as he’s often described by commentators and pundits alike) whom, this year, has been forced to reinvent himself as a hybrid ‘high half-forward’, and whom now, with possession of the ball outside the 50-metre arc, has a chance to win the game ‘off his own boot’. Taking 'the game on’, he dances in front of worried Blues defenders and, realising he has space and the journey in his tree trunk-sized legs, lets roost an almighty 'drop punt' that sails towards the goals -- the two higher posts in the four-post setup.
'Tracc' has this year reinvented himself as a hybrid forward
© Ken Leanfore / Red Bull Content Pool
They’ve now won eight games in a row, many by small margins and tonight’s in dubious circumstances...
Tracking the ball in flight, however, is Carlton’s Caleb Marchbank -- one of the motley crue working beyond their means to maintain the Blues’ late season defensive dominance.
The ball has the distance, but only just and as it nears the crucial goal line, Marchbank swings his arms out in a desperate attempt to foil the goal. In AFL, if the ball is touched at all by the opposition before crossing the goal line it becomes a behind, which is worth only one point versus the much-needed-in-this-moment six points Melbourne hopes is the outcome to ‘even the ledger’.
As he goes to ground and a number of other players finally arrive at the scene, Marchbank frantically motions towards the goal umpire that the ball was touched. Demons players disagree and the raucous Dees supporters chime in, in unison, along with them.
At this point the goal umpire, clearly very nervous, tells the controlling umpire he believes the ball was touched and that the score is a behind, to which we then go to the AFL’s score review system -- the ARC. Multiple angles are explored in slow motion both forward and in reverse, but it’s inconclusive leaving the ARC umpire to declare that there’s “insufficient evidence to say if the ball was touched”. In these instances, the score review becomes an ‘umpire’s call’, which as stated above is a ‘touched’ behind.
Melbourne is now 56 to Carlton’s 60 and there’s just 41 seconds left to play. (You can watch snippets of this in the video above in the Number One spot.) Had this been deemed a goal, the Dees would have been in front by one point and we’d be in for a break in play and a centre bounce or ball up -- this is the reset system that comes into play whenever a goal is scored. A behind, however, means Carlton gets control of the ball in their defensive goal square and once ‘kicked out’, the pressure comes in thick and fast. Grind and grind, the Blues find a way and the final siren sounds. They’ve now won eight games in a row, many by small margins and tonight’s in dubious circumstances, but just eight games ago the footy club was written off and deemed a failure in a year that was only just starting.
The Dees and Petracca, of course, are both dejected and lost for words. But this is Australian Rules Footy.
'Tracc' on the track
© Ken Leanfore / Red Bull Content Pool
Momentum Swings
There’s a term in umpiring any Aussie Rules game that is both a ‘Get Out of Jail Free Card’ and a huge point of contention: “Interpretation”...
For the week following the events of the above, every man and his, her or their dog had been disputing that ‘line ball’. The umpire's call; touched or not? Did the defender, Marchbank, just pressure the officiating person with his Oscar-winning performance, or did he actually get a fingernail to it? Did the ARC fail? And what could this mean in an even bigger moment, like a Grand Final?
The AFL and its subsidiary and grass roots initiatives all always come to face this moment and either fumble through it, or stoically own it. There’s a term in umpiring any Aussie Rules game that is both a ‘Get Out of Jail Free Card’ and a huge point of contention: “Interpretation”.
In other ball sports, whether by foot or bat or other, the rules are more hard and fast. Games are determined by more specific parameters and more often than not these days by excessive video replay, as seen in the NBA. But in AFL it’s more often than not based on any one of the four field umpires’ interpretations of events or those of either the boundary or goal umpires. Whether that’s a ‘holding the ball’, ‘incorrect disposal’ or even a ‘dangerous tackle’, there’s a fifty-fifty chance it could be interpreted differently from one umpire to the other (there is a fair amount of consistency, actually, but after each round there’s always one contentious call that becomes the talking point of the week). And while this might sound like an infuriating way to play the game, particularly if you’re any one of the 18 players on the field or four on the bench, or even part of the coaching panel or doctors and physios, of the team on the receiving end of one of these ‘line ball’ calls, you’d be surprised how quickly clubs move on and accept the outcome.
“It’s a tough one. It comes down to the umpire’s call and it’s hard for them as well to see the slightest touch on the ball, unfortunately, it didn’t go our way this time,” said Petracca’s teammate and Melbourne superstar defender, Steven May, when talking about the incident mentioned above on radio later that week. “We’ve had a few that have gone our way in the past, so I suppose it all evens out in the end.”
Incidentally May, who is effectively the ‘general’ in the Dees’ backline isn’t afraid to admit he also instructs his players to declare 'touched' should they find themselves in a similar situation.
“I’ve instructed the other defenders that even if they don’t think [it’s touched], you start waving your hands around, [because] you never know.”
Round 23, 2023 Adelaide Vs Sydney
Strap yourselves in.
If the earlier scenario sounded like edge-of-your-seat type of stuff, it pales in comparison to what happened in the following, penultimate round of the 2023 home and away season. For the Carlton Football Club, that earlier touched ball and ultimate win meant it all but secured its own fate to finish strongly within the top eight -- the final eight teams that go into finals, or what might be understood as ‘playoffs’, after 24 rounds. This year, however, the race and competition for spots in that top eight (the bottom four, really), has been evenly split between a number of teams -- most separated by percentage or four or two points, if not *even* in that bracket. (Each win in a season is four points, with a draw being two. The winning margin is added to an overall percentage that goes towards helping teams who are even on points, pipping the field for a higher ladder position.)
So while Carlton’s somewhat controversial finish held not a lot of sway on the rest of the competition, a game in the following round between the Adelaide Crows and the Sydney Swans came packed with an even more glaring call which did have an impact -- effectively reshaping that top eight race. It even went as far as to deny the losing team, Adelaide, a spot in that coveted top bracket, despite the fact that it actually *should* have won.
Not at all dissimilar to Petracca’s thumping kick, the 'Crows'’ prodigious midfielder Ben Keays kicked what would otherwise be referred to as a ‘sealer’ in the see-sawing game against the 'Swans'.
With 1:18 left on the clock (a game lasts roughly two hours with four quarters), an out-of-bounds-on-the-full clearance from the Swans’ defensive 50 meant Adelaide had a free kick. Enter Keays who was closest to the boundary at the time and who, brimming with confidence, snapped truly across his body off the left boot for the ball to sneak in for a goal. The goal umpire, however, saw it as grazing the post from the angle he was watching from which meant it was immediately called a behind with Adelaide now on 73 to the Swans’ 74.
Not realising the umpire’s incorrect call in the moment, Keays and a number of his teammates salute to the booming near-all-Adelaide fans in the stands assuming that ‘sealer’ had, in fact, sealed the game. The Swans, though, never a stranger to odd calls around the goal line, astutely see the umpire’s call and go about kicking out of defense, maintaining possession of the ball and wear down the clock to an almighty win that secures its own finals berth while also seeing Adelaide left at the dock, high and dry and without passage on the finals ship.
On review, of course, as we’ve been alluding to, this ‘behind’ is actually a goal, but as with most calls in the AFL, once the whistle is blown or the siren sounded, there’s not much that can be done, with the AFL’s outgoing CEO, Gillon McLachlan, the following day even acknowledging the call was wrong, but that given it was the umpire’s call; his interpretation... it is what it is.
But Why Put Myself Through That?
Because it is dynamic. Aussie Rules Footy is played on an oval, and no two ovals are exactly the same size. The game is played at breakneck speed in a 360-degree radius, meaning tackles can come from any angle. The ball is live longer than in most games and AFL players are among the fittest in the world, often running up to 14 kilometres in a game, which includes distance strides, sprints and more. But putting the fitness aside, players themselves are creative and dashing, especially in the modern era of play. You’ve seen the game’s ‘speccys’, most likely, or some of the ridiculous goals that can be produced, but there’s also hand work inside congestion and stoppage. In Aussies Rules you dispose of the ball by foot or by ‘handballing’ which is where you essentially ‘punch’ the ball with a closed fist to pass to another player (it’s not a punch with knuckles, rather it’s done on the thumb and pointer-finger side of a clenched fist). And the degree of difficulty around handballing is often eye-catching in and of itself.
Not to mention that some players can handball the ‘Sherrin’ over 20 metres. And game-day Sherrins at the top level are hard.
There's so much more we could delve into and share from both an historical perspective and one of contemporary nuance and sharing, but as we've tried to suggest here, it's best to experience it for yourself...
A ball in dispute is also something that, when you get the rules, can become a thing of beauty to watch. Whether it's Petracca or his co-conspirator, Clayton ‘Clarry’ Oliver, or Carlton’s Patrick Cripps or one of the game’s classy veterans like Red Bull athlete, Travis Boak, getting the ball out of the ‘coalface’ and into the hands of the outside runners, Aussie Rules and its peak representation, the AFL, is simply a joy to watch and experience. And it’s not always perfect, nor always right. And it breaks hearts and ignites the imagination in equal doses of ‘what ifs’ and 'could have beens’ but that imperfect nature of proceedings and the dynamism and creativity that stems from that might just be the best basis for "spectacle" in sport.
There's so much more we could delve into and share from both an historical perspective and one of contemporary nuance and sharing, but as we've tried to suggest here, it's best to experience it for yourself.
You can watch AFL from overseas using the Watch AFL app or seek out local programming. YouTube features plenty of highlight reels and social media is a massive platform for the native Aussie sport now. And as we go to publish we’re one round away from the end of the home and away season and into what is referred to as ‘Finals Footy’ -- a ferocious representation of the sport and almost no better place to start watching.
Want to meet Christian Petracca or other pros from various sports? Check out Red Bull Meet the Pro and enter for your chance to catch your favourite sportsperson in the flesh!