NRL Rugby (Newcastle Knights v New Zealand Warriors)

Trumpet Guy - for some reason, he played the theme song to "The Odd Couple" every time Newcastle scored a try

Kicking the point after

The "cheerleaders"

"Cheerleaders" in action

Apparently you need an Easter Bunny mascot

But the Easter Bunny has nothing on Unicycle Guy

Part of the worst halftime show we have ever witnessed

This is what happens when instant replay officials are too chicken to make the call - they pass it back to the refs on the field. Really?

I don't think it's a coincidence that the refs wear pink

Since Melissa and I couldn't spend Easter Sunday at the Lucio family Olympics(we missed everyone), we decided to go with the next best option - Sunday afternoon at "the footy". "The footy" is what the locals call the National Rugby League, the top league of professional rugby in Australia. It's interesting b/c 10 of the 16 teams in the league are located in Sydney or its suburbs (Australian Rules Football, the one with the pointing refs, is huge in Melbourne and the state of Victoria - we'll cover that in a later post).

Quick background on the NRL: until the 90's, it was a semi-professional league (most players held regular day jobs). Since then, several articles Drew has read describes "the NFL Effect" on the NRL (funny how Americans get the blame for ideas carried across the pond when they don't work out) - rugby league is now their full-time jobs, and they spend more time in the weight room than anywhere else. The NRL supposedly tests for steroids, but some of these guys are almost cartoonish-looking. It's made the NRL more of a smashmouth game, and it's turned a lot of people off. Pacific Islanders are in high demand as well - it's amazing how a few small islands turns out so many freakishly big athletes.

Quick rules for the game:

13 people to each side

Only backwards passes are allowed

In essence, you get 6 "downs" - after the 5th tackle, you have two options: attempt to carry the ball over the try line, which we would call the endzone (if unsuccessful it's a turnover at the spot) or you kick it away

Forward passes can be attempted in the form of kicking the ball ahead to a teammate

4 points for a try

2 points for a successful extra point/penalty kick

And in the words of John Madden "The team that scores the most points will probably win the game. Boom!"

Non-footy observations:

Tailgating is completely foreign concept to Aussies

"Cheerleaders" resembled adult dancers more than anything else

They had the most efficient beer lines we've seen at any sporting event (Take notes America)

Footy observations:

The referees wear pink jerseys

Instant replay officials have three options: try, no try, or pass it back to the ref. Do what? Isn't that what instant replay is for?

There are some pretty wicked collisions (and a lot of trash talk to go along with it)

The Knights beat the Warriors 24-22