I believe Aussie rules football to be the perfect team sport. Wide open play, some violence but not too much, high scoring, end to end action and no immobile slobs need apply. Am I wrong? I think not (those skin tight Castro Street shorts have to go though).
I like AFL football Yosh, but their is not much skill involved. I think that is some of its charm, if you have good hand eye coordination you can do the one thing you need to and that is kick the ball. The marking or catching of the ball is spectacular and the aerobic capacity needed is right up their with triathletes. The only bad point I find with NFL is the time wasting, because to me a part of any sport is stamina and endurance. I feel in NFL that does not come into play as much as it should.
I love Australian rules football. I have absolutely no idea whats going on other than the differences in scoring depending on which polls the ball goes through but its fun to watch. Its not on often where I am but once in a while VS or ESPN will carry it. It is actually a pretty brutal sport at times. I saw one guy clothesline another guy both running at full speed at each other and the other guy literally flipped around. It was a legal hit though because it was below his shoulders.
For skill I think football/soccer takes the cake. Australian Rules requires more individuality than, say, rugby. By that I mean that all players in Rules need to be able to do all of the required actions - they have to be able to mark, kick, handpass and run (whilst bouncing the ball). I came to Australian Rules as a young bloke from rugby union and I found the skills I used in rugby didn't serve me that well in Rules and I had to learn them and use them. In rugby I could run and pass and tackle and take a tackle and that's all I needed. I like NFL for its complexity - rbj you think Aussie Rules is difficult to follow - I think NFL is much more complex. Easy way to understand Rules is that the objective is to get the ball and get it through the big posts as quickly as you can - job done!
I believe there is a lot of skill involved in the many precision kicks Aussie footballers must make during the course of a game and in terms of enjoyment of pure sport I don't find "skill" all that relevant. Is their a high level of skill in swimming or running fast or bicycling? No. There is technique to be refined, of course, but it isn't exactly difficult to master the skill of running. I find the single most difficult thing to do in sports, that I'm aware of, is hit a baseball on a major league level. But how interesting is baseball, by and large? I'm a life long fan and former player but most of the season is a snooze.
As a Victorian we're raised on Aussie rules from birth, so needless to say i love it. Recently my team the North Melbourne Kangaroos took on an International rookie (Eric Wallace) from the US, he's made solid progress although not really close to getting an AFL game yet. It'll be a 2-3 year learning curve at least, from all reports he works hard and is well liked. Worth keeping an eye on his progress [video=youtube;1NHIM-ewp5A]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NHIM-ewp5A[/video]
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/spor...l+builds+momentum+Edmonton/8744386/story.html The sport is growing slowly, but steadily. In the Darwinian world of world culture when the American game of football has extinguished itself Aussie rules will be there to pick up the pieces.
