What is Australian Rules Football?

zbeckabee

A code of football played with an prolate spheroid ball, on large oval shaped fields, with four posts at each end. No more than 18 players of each team are permitted to be on the field at any time and the primary aim of the game is to score by kicking the ball between the posts. The winner is the team who has the highest total score by the end of the match. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Rules_Football Feb 16 07, 12:00 AM

MandyL

Tom Wills began to devise Australian rules in Melbourne in 1858. A letter by Wills was published in Bell's Life in Victoria & Sporting Chronicle on 10 July 1858, calling for a "foot-ball club" with a "code of laws" to keep cricketers fit during winter.[1] An experimental match, played by Wills and others, at the Richmond Paddock (later known as Yarra Park next to the MCG) on 31 July, 1858, was probably the first game of Australian football. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_rules_football#Origins_of_the_game Feb 16 07, 12:08 AM

What-A-Mess

Simply put....Rugby. Feb 16 07, 5:07 AM

22crows

Good grief WAM! Rugby? What a heresy! You would be lynched by any sportslover from Australia's southern states for that remark. It is quite a different game to rugby. Gridiron is much more similar to rugby, from which it evolved Feb 17 07, 12:38 AM

What-A-Mess

We know no difference here in the States. No offense was intended. Feb 17 07, 2:19 PM

What-A-Mess

Although the only major difference I see is this....... "In the U.K., an old saying goes 'football is a gentleman's game played by hooligans, and rugby [union] is a hooligan's game played by gentlemen'. In most rugby-playing countries, rugby union is widely regarded as an 'establishment'." Feb 17 07, 2:25 PM

22crows

WAM - no offence taken. LOL. We Aussie Rules fans can get a bit carried away at times. The "football" in your quote would refer to soccer, another form of football not anything like Aussie Rules. FYI a short overview of the four major codes of football in Australia: http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/football/ Feb 17 07, 7:56 PM

What-A-Mess

Ah! I see! I DO know that "the Rest of the World" calls, what we mistakenly call soccer, Football! As for A.R.F and Rugby, it has always been where I was Schooled, one in the same. completely interchangeable! This is what LEARNING is all about. Thanks for the edu-ma-cation! WAM Feb 17 07, 8:13 PM