Talk:Australian rules football/Archive 3

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Contents 1 Photos 2 Featured Article 3 Injuries ? 4 oldest codified football game still being played 5 Relationship to Gaelic football 6 Copyedit in intro 7 Removal of Country Football and Community Cup pics 8 Tied games? 9 Australian rules or Australian Rules? 10 South Australia in History

[edit] Photos

Surely someone has some better onces that are not subject to copyright restrictions. The current photo is blurry and non-descript. Some photos of the distinctive features of the game (ie. spectacular high marking etc) would be preferable. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Biatch (talk • contribs) 09:12, 18 May 2006 (UTC).

Some new photos would be good. This has been mentioned before, but until someone actually goes out and takes some, rather than just asking for them, nothing's going to happen. JPD (talk) 10:16, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

At last - someone's got a half decent photo - thank goodness! Well done! ρ¡ρρµ δ→θ∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 04:15, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I added the new pictures but i dont know how to confirm the copy right status. If someone could do that or explain to me how to do it that would be bloody awesome.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Krabby me (talk • contribs) 10:26, 28 June 2006 UTC.

I left you a note at your talk page. Basically, if you didn't take the picture yourself, or don't have something saying that the image has been released into the public domain or under the GFDL or something similar, we probably aren't allowed to use it, unfortunately. We can't just go taking pictures from other websites. JPD (talk) 11:55, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Americans like myself have no clue what a Australian football field looks like. From the description, it is unique.field with some extra posts and markings. --Rulesfan 02:53, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I think we should replace the two photos at the beginning of the page showing a mark and a kick. They are taken (or edited) in a certain way that I don't think really gives a true picture of the skills required in footy. Any chance of someone having a copy (that can be legally used in wiki) of the Jesaulenko grab and the Wells goal?

It is a big improvement from what was there in that it at least it actually demonstrates the two skills, the high mark and kick. As for a Jezza grab, it is most unlikely. But if you are putting your hand up to not only capture the Mark of the Year on camera but release your photos to the public domain and forego the massive profits you might make, by all means, go ahead. Sports photography, especially for high speed games where you are so far from the action, is extremely difficult. The images are fine for the moment. --Rulesfan 00:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Article

I think that we should make an effort to make this article awesome and then nominate it for the featured article. This could gain a lot of people to help extend the AFL wikipedia project. It would also give coverage to the worlds best game, football (AFL).

I agree, but personally, I am unsure why this article should only be rated B-class currently - someone may need to advise us in some detail as to what is required. By the way, when you write a note here, do you know how to do an automatic signature? click the the box above, 3rd from the right, with the squiggly line. ρ¡ρρµ δ→θ∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 06:04, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: "B-Class", this is a common misunderstanding. At the bottom is "Stub", then "Start", then "B-Class". Next comes "Good article", which has its own nomination process, which this hasn't gone through. So even though "B-Class" sounds pretty unflattering, it is actually a pretty high mark.

In reply to your other question, I think the first task would be to provide references for everything. There's months of work to do in that alone, and I don't think you'd get through FA without it. I would also look at uncluttering the page; it is tryin to cover way too much. The history section especially should be rolled out into a separate History of Australian rules football article, and replaced in this article by a half-screen synopsis. Snottygobble 06:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

thanks Drew, that's certainly made it a bit clearer for me - seeking out references - uggh - I don't mind putting down references as I go - but to look up references for the work of others doesn't thrill me. How is this for a fast track solution - I simply reference all the footy books in my library - there'd be a few dozen there - if I can find them all :-) ρ¡ρρµ δ→θ∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 07:19, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Seeking out references for enough inline citations will definitely be quite an effort, but worth it. As for otherwise improving the article, I'd like to get rid of the Hall of Fame section, which has its own article, and include an earlier section on positions (and general gameplay?). I'm also not sure about the need for the popular culture section, and whether the info on "structure and competitions" should really come before details about the game itself. JPD (talk) 17:55, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Injuries ?

Do players ever get injured ? There isn't much in the way of injury information on this page. Perhaps some typical injuries sustained whilst playing the sport would be useful ? --Rulesfan 23:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] oldest codified football game still being played

This statement should be correct.

Although the rules for "rugby football" were codified by the Rugby School in 1845, this game is not played today. Even the rugby school now plays the game of rugby union.

It wasn't until on January 26, 1871, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) formed, leading to the standardisation of the rules for all clubs in England that played a variety of the Rugby school laws that the sport of rugby union was officially codified. --Rulesfan 04:07, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Rugby football (as it was known until the split with rugby league in the 1890s) was codified at Rugby School in 1845. There is a clear connection between Rugby School and present day rugby union. The RFU is neither here nor there -- the Melbourne FC rules weren't instantaneously adopted by every club in Victoria in 1859 and — if the matter were decided by leagues/associations/federations (like the RFU) — the VFA wasn't formed until 1877. Grant65 | Talk 04:42, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

The code of rugby union is named after the Rugby Football Union, which first wrote the rules of the game. It is as different to rugby school football as soccer is to the Eton rules. Just because there is a connection does not follow that it is the same game. Otherwise Aussie Rules might be "Australian Rugby Marn Grook Gaelic Football League", first codified by the rugby school in 1845. --Rulesfan 23:52, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. All of the modern games are quite different to all of the games from that era. Either we accept that the in both cases the modern games are "the same game" as the older ones becasue of clear historical continuity, or we shouldn't be saying that any of them are the same game. JPD (talk) 11:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Point taken. fair enough. --Rulesfan 03:04, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Relationship to Gaelic football

Rulesfan, since you persist in your unethical behaviour, I'll repeat what I said on your talk page: To delete correct and fully referenced information from an article is very bad form. Furthermore, you took the O'Dwyer quote from Australian rules football, without pointing it out in either the edit summary or on the talk page. That is sneaky and very bad manners. Especially as you knew my reasons for putting it there — we had just discussed it at Talk:Gaelic football and you did not object. You may not agree with O'Dwyer's point of view, but you can't deny that it is a POV that is held by many people in Australia and Ireland. Grant65 | Talk 00:25, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

As my list of contributions will confirm, I have written a great deal for articles on various kinds of football at Wikipedia. I'm not going to let this go: history is always a matter of debate and to only represent one side of a historical debate is not in the spirit of Wikipedia. Grant65 | Talk 00:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

While I too have doubts about the Irish connection, I have always thought that that particular wording was fair and reasonable enough, and I support Grant in leaving it as it is. πίππύ δ'Ω∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 00:44, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

If anyone has any doubts about O'Dwyer's credibility, he provideds copious references, and the Victorian History Journal is not some fly-by-night operation, it is an academic journal subject to peer review and published by the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. Grant65 | Talk 01:04, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Bob O'Dwyer's false account of the game's origins DO NOT BELONG IN THIS ARTICLE

You have just proved yourself that References are only useful if they are valid and good references they don't themselves prove that someone is credible. Helen Darville provided references too and she even won the The Australian/Vogel Literary Award. Everyone thought she was "credible" for a while.

User:Grant65 persists on including O'Dwyer's account of the origin of Australian Football, yet this "theory" has been widely proven to be wrong. Removing it is not censorship at all. My point is that it doesn't belong in this article and adds nothing to the subject. The statement "relationship is unclear" is good enough for this article.

The article states that "Australian football has always been differentiated from rugby football by having no limitation on ball or player movement (that is, no offside rule), the need to bounce the ball while running"

O'Dwyer's account is highly biased (given that he is Irish) and has been written on completely superficial comparison of both games, and therefore deserves mention only in the Comparison of Australian rules football and Gaelic football article.

Why? Because it is completely and utterly wrong, that's why:

a) Neither the Cambridge Rules of 1856 or the Sheffield Rules of 1857 had an offside rule, nor did the Christchurch rules of 1854. The Eton Rules (from which soccer was based) only introduced the offside rule in 1862 and these rules were adopted by several clubs including Christchurch before adopting rugby rules. Australian rules is also said to be similar to both Sheffield Rules and Christchurch Rules.

a) The 1859 Melbourne Rules did not have the requirement to bounce the ball while running (READ THE TEN ORIGINAL RULES IF YOU HAVE ANY DOUBTS). Nor for that matter, did the ancient Irish game of caid, which Gaelic football is supposedly based on. However, the Christchurch Rules of the Christchurch Football Club did, and the rule may well have influenced Australian Rules and later Gaelic Football (as Thomas Croke, who codified the game was second Bishop of Auckland, New Zealand from 1870 to 1875).

A theory is exactly that, a theory, and does not belong in this article and should be treated with about the same skepticism as Erich von Däniken's that the pyramids were built by people from outer space simply "because they would have been hard for humans to build". --Rulesfan 02:30, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the main bone of contention is the wording of the final sentence: "These elements have been attributed to the influence of..." - I probably would be comfortable if this was qualified by mentioning the name of the observer - rather than making it sound as if it has been widely attributed by many observers - which is clearly incorrect. πίππύ δ'Ω∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 04:34, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

yes, thanks, that's the first think I attacked. I still don't think any form of blatant speculation should belong in a wikipedia article. Fair dinkum, some people have such a cultural cringe, even in academic circles, that they'll believe any cockamimi theory that is put forward, like the world is flat.--Rulesfan 04:50, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Rulesfan - please be a bit more circumspect with your comments - Grant has done a lot to improve the quality of quite a few football related articles and he has a right to objectively present a referenced theory on the subject. Our role should simply be to ensure that it is presented in a fair manner and doesn't give the impression that it is a widely accepted theory. I am confident that Grant would also agree with that. πίππύ δ'Ω∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 06:21, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

"Many have since dispelled..." is as badly weasel words as "These elements have been attributed to...". Find someone to quote on the matter. It doesn't really matter whether we believe the theory or not, only that we present it and it's counter-arguments fairly. JPD (talk) 11:43, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Rulesfan, you seem to be saying that O'Dwyer is either a liar or totally incompetent, both of which are very big calls. And I think you're wrong, whichever it is. I'll take the reference to Helen Darville as a joke, since she is a novelist, not someone who writes articles for refereed journals. I would also like to see how O'Dwyer has wilfully misconstrued or falsified his evidence in the way that Erich von Daniken did. It's simply incorrect to say that O'Dwyer has been "widely proven to be wrong". If he has, prove it. Cite some sources as well-researched as his article, and I don't mean self-published web pages put up by nationalistic nutters or amateur "historians" with an axe to grind. As for your accusation of "cultural cringe", people who know me well would be amused. If we have it your way we end up with Aussie rules being a kind of bastardised rugby.

Now, as to the substance of your comments. The Cambridge rules of 1856 included the following: "9. If the ball has passed a player, and has come from the direction of his own goal, he may not touch it till the other side have kicked it, unless there are more than three of the other side before him. No player is allowed to loiter between the ball and the adversaries' goal." That is an offside rule, yer honour. It is possible that the Sheffield rules were an influence on Wills, but unlikely because they were only written in 1857, about a year before Wills started devising his game. I've never seen anything to say that the Christchurch FC rules did not have an offside rule, but then Christchurch FC wasn't formed until 1863, post NZ goldrush, so it was probably influenced by Melbourne. Or do you mean the earlier "College rules" in Christchurch? If you have good quality sources relating to the NZ situation I would be interested to read them. I notice that you don't dispute O'Dwyer's point that other Irish ball games with old roots, such as hurling, do not have an offside rule.

If it is true that neither caid nor the Melbourne FC rules of 1859 required players to bounce or solo/toe-kick, it doesn't make them less similar, it just means O'Dwyer is wrong on one point. And that is not to say that I accept what you are saying re this particular point. While it is true that the 1859 Melbourne rules did not require players to bounce the ball while running, they also did not specify what kind of ball was to be used! That doesn't mean that they didn't use a ball resembling the present-day rugby and Aussie rules balls, and it doesn't mean that the ball wasn't bounced in 1858. According to the MCG, the bouncing rule was brought in "a few years" later, which would still put Melbourne FC ahead of Christchurch FC.[1] I would also be interested to know your source for the statement that caid did not require players to bounce or solo/toe-kick. Slainte, Grant65 | Talk 12:53, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I can say what I like about the guy. Is there a law against that ? Show me one other academically celebrated page that he has written besides his "take" on Aussie Rules. I am not suprised his account is so celebrated by cringing Aussies. I take SOME of your points BUT NOT the ones that count. The oval ball was not used until the Sherrin was invented in 1880 and there are drawn pictures of the round ball in use in from the 1860s until this time. But what is your point here ? What other rules did specify the ball ? None that I have read. Most balls are roundish by nature and even rugby played with a round ball in its early days. I believe, however, that you rely too much on the assumption that "there is no evidence to disprove", which should never be the premise of wikipedia, otherwise, as you say, it would be full of nutpot ideas and fuzzy logic, if anything an encyclopedia should be the realm of the skeptic. Sure, if you appeal to falsifiability, some clubs may have even kicked teapots around, but I don't assume that they did just because I don't have evidence that they didn't. There is no evidence to disprove the existence of aliens either, but that doesn't follow that they definately exist, even though Carl Sagan's theories say that they do, they are just that, theories, you cannot accept them as facts no matter how much you can try to believe them. And if you must refer to an "obscure" rule about loitering then under that definition isn't this an offside rule of sorts ??? Any player catching the ball "directly" from the foot may call "MARK". He then has a free kick no player from the opposite side being allowed to come "inside" the spot marked. As for bouncing. "a few years" later is a furfy until such time as you find the exact date. Until then it is 1866 in the official Victorian Rules as written by Harrison. --Rulesfan 01:03, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Rulesfan has a point here Grant. You make out this guy is some kind of god, but anyone can call themselves a "historian" by paying the RHSV a total of AUD$60 and reading a few books (that positively affirm their beliefs) at the society's tiny reference library at A'Beckett St. There are 1,500 of these people apparently. Had it been published by the State Library of Victoria, that would be another matter entirely. I agree that theories belong in the comparison article, they should not be accepted as historical fact on face value. --Spewmaster 02:02, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I personally believe that a strong link between Australian football and Gaelic football has never been made conclusively - and that is precisely what the article says at the moment - and further to that, it is reasonable that we make a reference to a source that argues the contrary position - and yes, the ins and outs can then be further expanded upon in the comparison article. I now think we have that covered pretty well - here is how that section is currently reading:

While it is clear even to casual observers that Australian rules football is similar to Gaelic football, the exact relationship is unclear, as the Irish game was not codified by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) until 1887. Historian B. W. O'Dwyer argues that Australian football has always been differentiated from rugby football by having no limitation on ball or player movement (that is, no offside rule), while the need to bounce the ball while running, punching the ball rather than throwing it, are elements of modern Gaelic football. Some of these elements might be attributed to the influence of earlier Irish games.[3] Many have since dispelled many of the main premises of O'Dwyer's theory.

I'm pretty comfortable with that. πίππύ δ'Ω∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 02:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Pippu, I'm not comfortable with the last sentence. Dispelled what? I don't know of a document authored by Wills spelling out the ways he was influenced by rugby football either, but that doesn't mean that he wasn't.

Rulesfan/Spewmaster, we can't ask B. W. O'Dwyer, ex-Macquarie University, about his credentials or his further thoughts on this matter, as he passed away in April this year:

Dr Barry O'Dwyer who died some days ago at his home in the Blue Mountains was the first medieval historian appointed to the Macquarie staff. An expert in Irish medieval history Barry also published in Australian history — (he was a decendant of the great Irish rebel Michael O'Dwyer) and wrote a history of Australian Rules Football — (he played in the ruck and 'down back' for Fitzroy in the VFL).[2]

(Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.) His other publications include: Stephen of Lexington: Letters from Ireland 1228-1229, ISBN: 0879074280 Cistercian Pubns, 1982; "The Annals of Connacht and Loch Cé, and the monasteries of Boyle and Holy Trinity", Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy v.72 (1972) pp. 83-101; "The Problem of Reform in the Irish Cistercian Monasteries and the Attempted Solution of Stephen of Lexington in 1228," The Journal of Ecclesiastical History v.15, no.2 (1964), pp. 186-191; "Gaelic Monasticism and the Irish Cistercians," Irish Ecclesiastical Review (1967), pp. 19-28; "The Crisis in the Cistercian Monasteries in Ireland in the Early Thirteenth Century," ASOC v.31 (1975), pp. 267-304 & v.32 (1976) pp. 3-112; "Michael Dwyer and the 1807 Plan of Insurrection", Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, v.69, 1983, pp. 73-82. He seems to have had pretty solid credentials as a historian to me. Of course, academic historians do make mistakes, but this is not someone "reading a few books (that positively affirm their beliefs)" at RHSV's "tiny reference library". The article in contention, which is front of me, has 12 pages of text with 56 footnotes, from at least 15 different publications. He cites at least a dozen different articles from Bell's Life during 1858-65 and half a dozen from the Australasian in 1866-74.

Rulesfan, Cambridge rule #9 of 1856 is an not an "obscure rule about loitering". It is a direct ancestor of the English FA's offside rule. To say that rule #6 of the Melbourne FC Rules of 1859 is an offside rule is stretching the point, since it is similar to both Cambridge rule #8 about a fair catch and essentially same as the modern Australian rules about marking. If you are saying that the current AFL rules about marking are a kind of offside, then that is a novel idea, but I'm not sure you will get much support for it.

As for bouncing the ball, O'Dwyer says: "this emerged in practice [my emphasis] as a compromise between the Geelong [which had it] and Melbourne rules...although the [false] story later got around that [H.C.A.] Harrison ... introduced this clause into the 1866 rules..." (O'Dwyer's source is Mancini & Hibbins, 1987, p. 20-22.) (Cat fans may not have much to celebrate at the moment but they can claim redit for bouncing it seems ;-) In other words the Melbourne FC 1859 rules were probably used only in intra-club matches and game day rules in the early 1860s were negotiated between the different clubs, based on their respective codes.

To briefly sum up my reasoning: the now-conventional argument, popularised by Blainey, that Tom Wills simply modified rugby and/or amalgamated it with other British public school/university games in 1858-59 seems problematic to me, because (1.) there weren't any public school games without strong offside rules and; (2.) there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that he was influenced by Marn Grook. It is safe to assume that there were caid-playing Irishmen in Australia prior to 1859, so where is the problem? The people who responded to Wills' ad in Bell's Life and turned up for the game/meeting at the Richmond Paddock on 10/7/1858 would have been from all kinds of backgrounds. There were also plenty of European folk football codes other than the ones we have mentioned. Is anyone confident that Wills did not have knowledge of caid, or other surviving medieval football games, and/or did not factor it/them into his formulation of the Melbourne FC code of 1859? Drawing a long bow if you ask me. (I also think Blainey does his credibility a lot of harm with his emphasis on the epic Melbourne Grammar-Scotch game of August-September 1858, umpired by Wills, which can hardly have had much to do with the Melbourne FC rules of May 1859.)

Grant65 | Talk 05:27, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Grant, the guy is Irish, seriously what other perspective do you think he would look at it from ? I'm sure if you got a Martian academic could find some way to write a book, that "proves" that Martians kidnapped Wills and introduced some martian rules. You still have so many "what if?"s in your argument that it sounds like you want to believe this. "Safe to assume" does not equal fact. John Howard thinks it pretty safe to assume that global warming is science fiction. Besides, there have been plenty of other accounts of the game's history (including many Australian) ones which do not make the same claims. Why are you so obsessed with this one ? You have still not sold me that the bounce existed in caid - even in practice. Until you produce a fact, I have no choice but not to believe you. You cannot deny that Wills attended the Rugby schools. But it cannot be proven that caid had anything to do with the game, despite the Correlation implies causation and Hypothetical syllogisms that O'Dwyer puts forward - it remains no more than conjecture and just a theory. --Rulesfan 06:20, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

By your logic, we can't take Blainey's word either, simply because he is "biased" by his attendance at a protestant public school. That would be wrong though, wouldn't it? I simply can't buy that kind of prejudice, especially against professional historians.

As I said to Pippu, I don't know of a document authored by Wills spelling out the ways he was influenced by rugby football either. Considering that the basics of Australian rules haven't changed in 140 years, the commonsense/visual evidence for a link to rugby isn't really very strong either. I am not saying that rugby wasn't one of the prime sources of Aussie rules. I am saying that the only difference between the "rugby/public school/university theory" and the "caid theory" is that we know Wills and the other authors of the 1859 rules attended those British institutions, while we don't know if any of them had witnessed caid. Grant65 | Talk 07:24, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Wills didn't just attend the rugby school, he was also known to have been a big fan of the sport. He played the game extensively and campaigned long and hard for the crossbar to be introduced into the revised 1866 Victorian rules. This would be evidence enough that he was directly influenced by rugby rules. --Rulesfan 08:06, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, now try justifying it by reference to the Melbourne FC rules of 1866, which feature all the key elements of the 2006 rules. Grant65 | Talk 17:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Once again Grant, you assume everyone has telepathic powers. Can you please explain what the hell you are on about here ? --Rulesfan 23:38, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Put it this way: how do you explain the differences between the rugby rules of the day and the Melbourne F.C. rules of 1866? Oh of course, silly me, the "Australian" elements (1) materialised out of thin air and/or (2) were the product of Tom Wills' genius. Anyone who says otherwise has terminal cultural cringe. Is that how it goes? Grant65 | Talk 00:42, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Grant, I suggest that until you become the world's foremost expert on the subject, stop guessing and go put your solutiobn to how the pyramids were built here. --Rulesfan 04:30, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I had another look at Blainey's book A Game of Our Own today and his coat is slung on a rather more slender logical hook than many of his admirers may imagine: first, he states that those involved in the match/meeting organised by Wills on July 31, 1858 played a variety of football codes. Second, his argument against Irish influence rests on the fact that few Irish Catholics played Australian rules before the 1880s; indeed Blainey states that they preferrred to play hurling and regarded the new code as a "Protestant game". The irony is, that in doing so he affirms that hurling, an Irish sport with no offside rule (like Australian rules and the later Gaelic football) was reasonably widespread in Victoria at an early stage. And if hurling was there, why not caid? Also, it is neither here nor there whether Irish people played Australian rules — Tom Wills & co had only to witness hurling, caid or whatever to be influenced by them. Finally — and it surprised me to see this practised by such a dogmatic empiricist — Blainey provides no references or bibliography in this particular book! Grant65 | Talk 15:07, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyedit in intro

Is it really necessary to introduce the level of technical detail in the intro. It now sound stupid. The purpose should be to focus on what makes this game unique when compared to others, not to flesh out all of the concepts raised. I mean afterall, it is just a summary, further clarification of the rules can be found further into the article .... there is no sense in repeating the same info. --Rulesfan 23:18, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of Country Football and Community Cup pics

Why was this necessary ? I think both pics add to the article by demonstrating the diversity of participation. Country football has much higher participation than city football. --Rulesfan 04:37, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Without commenting on the choice of pictures, there definitely were too many pictures crammed into that section. We need good pictures to illustrate the article, not turn it into an image gallery displaying the whole range of participation. What would be good is a way to fit appropriate pictures into the sections that don't have any. It would also be good to put some info on country v city participations rates in the text. JPD (talk) 12:49, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

From an independent point of view, the CC picture looked much better than the floggers picture. I understand that the floggers are showing a cultural aspect of our game but the poor contrast between the people and their instruments (everything is black and white) makes the picture hard to make out. 40010 03:15, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tied games?

I just asked an AFL nut friend of mine this question, and she did not know the answer. I couldn't find any info here either, so it may need to be added, if anyone knows the answer. What is the procedure in the case of a tie, in both goals and total points scored? And what would be the procedure if such a tie occurred in the Grand Final? I understand it's a rare occurrence, but there must be some kind of rule to cover it. Kelvingreen 16:31, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

This is a matter for the rules of the league/competition, not the rules of the sport. If the scores are tied at the final siren, the game is drawn. In home and away matches for the Australian Football League and similar leagues, both teams receive 2 premieship points. Traditionally, tied finals are replayed the next week, but now there are provisions for extra in early weeks of the finals, and only the Grand Final would be replayed. This possibly should be covered somewhere on Wikipedia, but as I said, it really does depend on the competition, and isn't something specific to the sport. JPD (talk) 18:07, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Australian rules or Australian Rules?

Shouldn't it be Australian Rules rather than Australian rules? If you type the name into google, the R will be capitalised in almost every single result. This is a minor quibble I admit, but it just looks odd every time I see it.

The History section on afl.com.au reveals that the sport is officially called "Australian football" and that "Australian Rules" is effectively just a slang term coined by journalists. So I guess there's no official right or wrong way to write it, but personally I'd go with the version that looks "right".

Bartolovic 06:26, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

It's an accepted standard that names of sports are not capitalised. For instance, we do not refer to Rugby League or Basketball. The A in Australian, however, is capitalised for obvious reasons.

In the context of a global encyclopaedia, the term "Australian football", while technically correct, is inappropriate due to possible confusion with the sport known as "football" in the rest of the world and "soccer" (traditionally) in Australia. --The Brain of Morbius 04:55, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] South Australia in History

The article credits the beginning of Australian rules in South Australia as 1877 (when the SANFL began), but clubs like Adelaide and Woodville were reported to be going before this time. The SANFL article says that they didn't adopt all the Victorian Rules until the advent of the SANFL but played a game very similar to the Victorian rules. Should not the article then read that South Australia played the game from 1860 ? --Rulesfan 06:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The article says 1873, not 1877. This is the earliest year mentioned in either South Australian National Football League or Australian rules football in South Australia. Do you have a source saying that the game was played in SA in 1860? JPD (talk) 11:42, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Just quickly, yes - at John Devaney's Fullpointsfooty site[3] "1860: Victorian style game initiated in Adelaide with formation of Adelaide club." John's site has more credibility than most given his extensive records and long devotion to the cause. I can look further if you wish - I have sighted some online State Library extracts previously which would confirm the game in SA predates 1877, but would need to Google for them. The point made above is quite valid - like Victoria (and Tasmania for that matter) the game was played for a fair while before the formation of Associations to run competitions. The SAFA/SANFL is in fact a week or two older than the VFA/VFL! And just as another aside, the SANFL official site[4] says that "The first official record of football being played in South Australia dates back to 1843." ... once again proving that just because it is on the 'web doesn't necessarily mean it is reliable. Pudgey 10:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

A few points:

• Thanks for the fullpointsfooty reference - the date should be added to all three articles, unless there is an earlier date. Ken Piesse's Complete Guide also give the formation of the Adelaide club in 1860 as the first date in SA's football history, but doesn't say anything about how similar their game was to the Victorian version.
• The point that football predates the associations is valid, but irrelevant. The article did not give 1877 as the beginning of Australian rules in South Australia.
• I can believe that there is a record of some sort of football in SA in 1843 - but it would be interesting to know what sort of rules they used, as this was when rules varied from school to school and town to town. JPD (talk) 14:34, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd certainly be interested to know what form of football was being played in 1843. Sounds like the SANFL knows what they are talking about, but what is their source. Has a book been written on the subject ? Certainly there would be specific mention if it were the rugby football variety. Is it possible that South Australian football somehow influenced or was the pre-cursor to the game the Tom Wills helped introduce into Victoria as some claim ? --Rulesfan 06:53, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

South Australia was only settled by the British in December 1836 so it would seem likely that any football game played in 1843 would have been a variation on what we would call soccer (Rugby school itself seemingly only accepting running with the ball in about 1841. While Croweaters certainly flowed over to the Victorian goldfields, I have not read anywhere yet that suggests they brought the game to the Vics. I'll let you know if/when I find some other references on pre-1870's football in SA, but a short online summary is here. In the meantime I will adjust the SA football articles when next editing (unless someone else gets to it first). Pudgey 09:38, 18 January 2007 (UTC)