Ok, did it the hard way using google. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100703220423AA3FIQo So it is very similar to rugby, slightly different rules. Curious how people in England call soccer football, you call football rugby, and we call football something totally different. Confusing.
I don't think it's similar to rugby at all. You could ask Hoggy or Dep and they'll tell you the same. Rugby is boring. But yeah, I guess I can understand how someone outside Australia/NZ could get easily confused.
Looks like a bunch of guys in their underwear running around mindlessly punting a ball through a huge, relatively un-missable target. Seems more comparable to Basketball or Soccer than American football
Connector it's really odd for people that haven't seen it before. It is unique to Australia and has (from last time I checked) the 2nd highest on ground attendance rates behind the NFL. Soooo it's awesome live It is nothing like rugby in terms of play type. Rugby and NFL are set on grids where you try to advance in various ways. AFL is more like basketball in terms of field structure. You can run anywhere and the movement can go 360 but with the obvious intention of moving it forwards towards the goals. It full contact with no padding. The administrators have sadly put a stop to alot of the fights but it still pretty brutal. Average distance the players run per game is around 14kms. It can be really hard getting the gist of the game if you don't have someone telling you WTF is going on. If there is a game being shown over there let us know and we can talk you through the rules. I have heaps of friends from the US and Canada who have come to Sydney to stay and are now big AFL fans
The average attendance of the AFL is just slightly less than half that of the NFL. We have 23 million people and you guys have 300+ million. So yeah.
Big day today! So PUMPED!! Dep, hope you're gonna land yourself in front of the tele today and watch a corker of a match!