Football Madness, Aussie Style

The holiday weekend just finished was the climax of the Australian football seasons, with two "Grand Finals" contested. On Saturday, the Australian Football League (that's Aussie Rules, round field, funny guys with lab coats stick their hands out at their waist to show a goal scored) had its Grand Final in Melbourne (the birthplace of Aussie rules), and Sunday was the Grand Final for National Rugby League in Sydney (the home of rugby league in Australia).

I happened to be in Melbourne on business Wednesday-Friday and saw the town dolled up for its annual game -- unlike the Super Bowl, the AFL and NRL Grand Finals are always held in Melbourne and Sydney respectively (although my Melbournian taxi driver, when I told him how the Super Bowl rotates from year to year, thought that would be a good idea for the games). Fans lined Collins Street (the main drag) on Friday for the big parade, and all over town I saw people wearing their teams scarves (Melbourne is a good bit cooler in early spring than either Perth or Sydney, where the two AFL finalists hail from).

But the good people of Victoria were bummed that for the second straight year, no Melbourne team (they are something like 10 of the 16 AFL teams) was competing for the championship -- the West Coast Eagles (Perth) and the Sydney Swans played for the "Premiership" (that's championship to Americans). But the local businesses made the best of it, all the windows decked out in blue & gold (Eagles) and red & white (Swans), and the hotels appreciated the 45,000 interstate visitors that came for the game. The Eagles avenged last year's loss to the Swans, winning 85-84 in an exciting game that I saw little of as I struggled with my ISP and wireless modem/router support people on the phone to make this internet thing work.

On Sunday Sydney shared the fate of its rivals in Melbourne, hosting a Grand Final for NRL that for the first time ever had no team from New South Wales. In that game, the Brisbane Broncos beat the Melbourne Storm 15-8 to claim the title.

I watched the NRL game but listened to the radio play by play done for the 20th consecutive year by Roy & HG, two Aussie comedian/sports commentators who epitomize the stereotypes of Australian sport. Very irreverant, very funny, their comments frequently punctuated by very loud reminders, "I love Rugby League" said in gruff, manly Australian sports voices.

It was the funniest damn sports broadcast I've ever heard. They started off by heavily criticizing the pre-game music act, INXS with the reality-show selected new lead singer (since the original one is still quite dead), they said "this isn't quite right is it" about their performance and in one of their dozens of references to the Australian troops (nicknamed "diggers" since the First World War I think) in Iraq, said "Our diggers aren't fighting to defend this crap" (or something similar). Oh, and when the Australian national anthem came on, they replaced it with some Aussie country song.

During the actual game, one Brisbane player (Tate) had one ear halfway torn off during the game (lots of blood, in American sports he would have been forced to leave the game & have it bandaged lest hepatitis and the HIV virus be spewed all over the field, but not here) and Roy & HG called him Van Gogh (like the English, saying "Van Goff" not "Van Go") for the rest of the game, even when he scored a try (that's like a touchdown). When one player made a particularly good play, Roy & HG were ready to award him the Victoria Cross. A few times players would make a mistake or come in with an illegal dangerously high tackle and they'd yell "what a dickhead" -- which I've never heard on American TV or radio. A Brisbane player (Tony Carroll) went down with what looked to be a serious knee injury, and Roy & HG (I couldn't tell which was which sorry) were going on about how the coach had to take him out because "his kneecap is busted, he has a busted scrotum, his spleen is shot, his sternum is wrecked" etc. And once they said, referring to a particularly lucky play, "every now and then the Lady Luck of Rugby League will reach down into your trousers and give you a little tug". Oh, and many many references to the referee and sideline officials being blind.

No, you won't hear guys like Roy & HG on American TV or radio doing a Super Bowl (the closest equivelant I can think of is the Comedy Channel commentary for the State of the Union). The NFL is too damn serious about itself to allow anything like that, and American ears would no doubt be hurt by some of the profanity Roy & HG used, "bullshit" being a frequent expletive that wasn't deleted. But they made an already exciting game funny beyond words.