Sport

4.15.2005 11:00pm (PNG)

I have been dying for a sport fix and it came in the form of *‘Friday Night Football’.* The Australian Rugby League broadcasts a featured weekly match up between two top teams. This week pitted the Sydney Bulldogs v. Sydney Roosters (I like using ‘v.’ instead of ‘vs.’, like the fancy attorneys on ‘Law and Order’) a rematch of last year’s grand final, in which the Bulldogs prevailed.

There are two major professional rugby associations – Rugby Union and Rugby League. Union uses the classic rugby rules, with 15 players on each side. Union is more physical (it involves the ‘scrums’, the huddled mass of men which is the universal symbol of rugby), slower paced and low scoring. Union is played throughout Europe (mostly the UK) and the South Pacific (namely Australia). Rugby League is Union’s little brother – 13 players, faster paced and higher scoring. There are about 15 teams (I could never get a number everyone agreed upon) in the league – 14 from Australia and one from New Zealand. People will try to tell you that Rugby League is a lot like American football but this is a serious stretch. The significant similarity being that when a team has possession, they have 5 ‘tries’ to move the ball (which looks like a bloated football) the length of the field and score.

A few surprises: About 30-40 people (adults and children) turned up in the staff TV room to watch the contest. I expected a spirited crowd but the game was watched in virtual silence. It was a little eerie. I was the only one making any noise, with incessant questions about the rules and audible grunts when a violent tackle or blatant cheap shot (there were many) took place. Also, the crowd at Sydney was weak. Only 27,000 people bothered to make the journey to marvelous Sydney Stadium (it was built for the 2000 Olympics) to see a rematch of last year’s finals – and both teams are from Sydney! The Reds pack in 45K, standing room only for a Wednesday night game featuring Danny Graves’ bobble-head doll. Strange.

Still, the game was entertaining – a see saw battle that saw the Roosters up 22-16 with 10 minutes remaining. Then the school’s power went out. Game over.

On a side note, rugby league, like international soccer, insists on the game clock counting up to 40 minutes (or 90 for soccer) rather than count down to zero. Also, the clock never pauses – even for a stoppage in play. Rather, they keep a separate count of ‘penalty time’ that is added on at the end of the game. Thing is, absolutely no one except the official time keeper on the field knows how much extra time is added – so the game just continues and then abruptly ends when this guy blows the whistle. This, without question, is the most ridiculous tradition in all of sports.

*There are two channels in PNG. EMTV, which is from Australia. The other is a local PNG station – I don’t know the station letters. Let’s just call it WPNG.*