The difference of rugby, rugby and rugby.

There’s three kinds of Rugby in Australia – and for foreigners, especially Canadians – the only commonwealth nation to have really missed the ball - it gets a bit tricky to figure out what you should be watching: Aussie Rules, Rugby Union or Rugby League.

So my first boss here, from South Australia, was a pure Aussie Rules fan, so she took me out to my first Rugby game – the Sydney Swans (who names a football team after a Swan? no wonder it took them 70 years to win The Cup!) The players are taller, and leaner than the other two games. It’s very paced, a lot more running than tackling. Basic differences: you can actually pass forward (by punting it with your fist), goals are scored by a kick through the middle uprights (6 points) or through either side of the second uprights (1 point), and no real scrums, players do a basketball-style jump for the ball at the start, and you’re off from there. Played: basically everywhere in the Country *except* New South Wales (Sydney). And the winning team has their team song played (every team has a team song – one of the people next to me made me listen to the Swan’s song because it was her phone ring tone.)

(I’m a little partial to AFL - I joined an Aussie Rules Rec team (with flag belts – no tackles) for a few weeks, which was heaps of fun. Especially since the only two girls on the team were myself, and one of their girlfriends – a tiny Thai girl. They took pretty good care of us – especially since the rules gave guys 6 points for a kick through the uprights, but girls got 9. How’s that for a rule incentive to pass to the women?)

Game two:
Rugby Union. One of my buddies, Peter, scammed two corporate tickets from work for the Sydney Waratah’s – the Rugby Union team. Rugby Union is considered the Private school/privileged game, and it feels like going to see the Canucks – with $160 jerseys at the souvenir stand, and big corporate sponsorship. Aussie Stadium had 38,000 people watching the Waratah’s vs. the Canberra Brumbies (Brumby is a wild horse). Rugby Union is considered ‘real’ rugby – it’s international. Australia has 4 sides in the International league – the Super 14 (NZ has 6, South Africa, 4). There are very structured scrums, when you are tackled, you just release the ball and hope your team gets it – so it’s a fast game, big tackles, and it’s good fun to watch. Points are 6 for a try (try = touchdown), 2 on conversion.

And to finish up the triumvirate – we took our Canadian tourist Raeann out to a Rugby League game. Rugby League is the “public school version” of Rugby – the teams are neighbourhoods in the City, so people get pretty passionate about their favourites, because one of their buddies is probably playing. The crowd is definitely rowdier, there’s a lot more jeering – but the games are still big – 20,000 people at the Balmain Tigers vs. the Parramatta Eels – so it’s no small game. League has nastier tackles, its a little slower than union, no line-in’s (where they throw the ball from the sidelines, and the players jump up to catch). There are far fewer scrums, which are less organized to start with and they actually have 6 tackles (equiv. of a down) for a try (equiv. of a touchdown) before possession is given to the other team. It looks a lot more like Canadian or American Football (or Gridiron as they call it here). Scoring is 4 points for a try, and 2 on conversion. League is pretty much only popular in New South Wales (maybe extending up a bit to Queensland).