The Australian Rules Football Thread

[Magnetic Curses]

positively captivating

[TruffleShuffle]

it is. and unlike illinois basketball games, most of the scores get out of the 40s.

[shnsajax]

I need to start watching more. Been really slacking.

[Magnetic Curses]

I need to start watching more. Been really slacking.

 

it's ok, we understand

[Guest]

I need to start watching more. Been really slacking.

 

it's ok, we understand

 

Don't you have a name change to take care of?

[TruffleShuffle]

for those who want to watch games online, you may be able to try the website firstrowsports.eu. they're televising rugby world cup games and there are also heaps of college fb and nfl games on there. ping pong and various beach volleyball matches also seem to be televised so i suspect they'll also have aussie rules until they get shut down.

 

btw, next week's matches will be carlton at west coast (winner to face geelong) and sydney at hawthorn (winner to play collingwood).

[Mark Priors Calves]

The Rugby World Cup is being at least partially broadcast on the new NBC Universal Sports channel. Its 625 on Directv.

[TruffleShuffle]

grand final saturday (about midnight friday night your time)... geelong and collingwood, two best teams all year. collingwood has only lost twice this year, but both times were to geelong. the cats (geelong) won titles in 2007 and 2009, and most people figured their window was closed as AFL tends to run in 5 year cycles, but they've managed to stay very good even though many of their stars are "old" (with old being near 30 in the AFL). collingwood won the title last year and are very good and pretty young too. their coach is retiring after this year, somewhat controversially, because they'd continually been failing to reach grand finals under him despite many chances, so the club set up a succession plan where he'd step down after 2011 and hand over the reins to an assistant coach. now all of a sudden they've made two straight grand finals and could be back to back champs, and everyone seems to think that their coach wants to continue coaching. we'll see what happens... if he does coach again it won't be with them next year.

 

geelong is a city about 45 minutes south of melbourne; that whole community is rabid cats supporters. collingwood is an inner city melbourne neighborhood; everyone in australia who isn't a magpies (black and white bird) supporter seems to hate them. collingwood supporters have the reputation of white sox fans; namely, toothless run-down thugs who are frequently drunk, on drugs, in jail or actively starting fights.

 

http://www.ls1.com.au/forum/archive/index.php/t-84000.html

 

 

i'm sure it's a dumb stereotype but it makes me laugh anyway.

[TruffleShuffle]

AFL grand final today! Starts just after midnight eastern US time on Friday night... everybody watch it!

[Garwilly]

AFL grand final today! Starts just after midnight eastern US time on Friday night... everybody watch it!

 

I'm trying, if they could get their signal working.

[shnsajax]

Geelong is flying right now.

[TruffleShuffle]

podsiadly is a pretty interesting story. he played almost his whole career in the VFL (basically the top level of australian football below the AFL), and was going to retire and take a strength and conditioning position with geelong's staff. he had a great year in the VFL, geelong decided to draft him, and he's become one of the better goal scorers in the league at an age when many guys are looking at retiring.

[Guest]

Geelong's been getting smashed after that good start.

[Guest]

Tom Hawkins (26 for Geelong) is a beast.

[TruffleShuffle]

this has been a terrific match. pretty crazy that geelong could be the only team to beat collingwood this year, and they'd have done it three times.

 

hawkins was pretty borderline to even make geelong's top 22 all year, he's having the game of his life. of course, that goes to show how deep geelong is that they can sometimes leave off a player like him.