A few more footy pics

Here are some more photos. One is the sydney swan (AFL) and one is the Manly Sea Eagle mascot (NRL). I am still convinced that there is no such thing as a sea eagle and this was an attempt to make seagull sound more ferocious. Speaking of ferocious, here are some of my favorite australia team names: Roosters - Russell Crowe owns this team, Rabbitohs (ferocious rabbit - huge pointy teeth), waritahs (Named for a flower), swans, etc. There are tougher ones, too, but they are not as funny to mention.

The top left photo is when I was in adelaide (I will go into this later), and that is Rugbee, or Rugbee union. In this case, it was international - the Rugbee World Sevens. 7 man teams (normally there are 13-15 on the field) go head to head in quick matches. Honestly, every match was 2 7-8 minute halves with three minute halftime. I had a lawn seat, and you could watch some, nap, and catch about 20 different interenational matches in a day. A great day. Fiji has a good team and probably was the most fun to watch. The other pictures are from the NRL Match, Storm Vs Seagulls (eagles). This was #1 vs #2 in the standings and an exciting match. It was even a sell out crowd of almost 20,000. It is both cool and funny at the same time to think about how a professional sport has the crowd and neigborhood feel of SHG vs Chatam (highschools where I grew up). Fun scene anyway.

One other random comment, the Footy Show, a weekly show during the football season that focuses largely on NRL, is easily the best Australian show I have encountered. In fact, it is the only australian tv i watch. Quite entertaining mix of sports and joking around and just making fun of people. Probably the highlight is there is an award given away every year called the Falcon award. It is named for a player's nickname. It goes to the person that takes that takes the best headshot during the season, usually off a dropkick. Good stuff. Alright, enough about sports here. Also, yes, AFL and NRL is fun. World sevens are fun, but Rugbee is only OK, and circket, well, not so much.