Sport Weekend

Last weekend I went to two different sporting events. It was a lot of fun. It’s really cool to see how, no matter where you travel in the world, sport is a language that everyone speaks and worships. Here in Australia, the most popular sports are Rugby (two different types: Rugby Union and Rugby League) Australian Football (Aussie Rules), Cricket, and Soccer.

The first event I went to was a Rugby League match on the Gold Coast, which is about an hour south of Brisbane. The teams playing were the Dragons from North Sydney verses the Titans from the Gold Coast. My house mate, John Mayne, loves the Dragons so I went along with him and two other friends to watch. The game was good but I am not head over heels in love with it yet.  The objective of the game is to lateral the football (which is a bit larger than the American football) to your team mates and advance it forward by running full speed towards the other team and goal. Once you are tackled you have take the ball and roll it back to your teammate with you foot where then the next player takes the ball, laterals it left or right, and then runs forward again. The team on offense is allowed six tackles before they have to punt it away.  A touchdown is called a TRY and basically occurs when you make it into the end zone. If you’re big, fast, can lateral/catch a large sized football and like to hit people with no pads on, then you may be good at this sport. As for me, I am not interested in playing.

 

The second event I went to was a soccer match in Brisbane. This was the championship final and it was between the Brisbane Roar and the Central Coast Mariners (this game would be equivalent to an MLS championship game in America). It was the first time for both teams to be in the final and this game was one of the most amazing soccer matches in Australian finals history. In the first 90 minutes no one scored so the game went into overtime. In the first 15 minutes of overtime the Central Coast Mariners scored two goals.  As the second overtime rolled around there was 10 minutes left and the Mariners were still up two goals.  Just about every Brisbane person believed there was no way to come back from being 2 down and only having 10 minutes left. Anyway, at around the 9^th minute, the Brisbane Roar scored.  Everyone went crazy. The time dwindled down to about a minute with no other goals. Then with 30 seconds left the Brisbane Roar was set up with a corner kick. They kicked the corner and the Roar headed it in!  It was incredible. Everyone went ballistic, including me. So the game is tied and both teams are given penalty kicks with the Brisbane Roar goalie blocking two and all Roar players scoring their individual PK’s. It was awesome.

Anyway, I have included some pictures and videos below. Hope you enjoy!

Go Roar!