Written by Back to the fun stuff for this post and while pondering the various sports out there this is one that completely passed me by. It’s not that I’ve never heard of it and in fact I’ve seen a match live some years ago but for some reason it’s only just occurred to me that I might find a few good rucks here.
You could argue that a sport that’s just played in one country really shouldn’t feature in my non-existent league table of hardest sportsmen but it’s going to anyway. It’s also very similar to Gaelic football, played in Ireland, so that’s almost two countries it’s played in.
So here we go and apologies for the lack of sound on this one but that shouldn’t detract from the numerous clips-round-the-ear featured therein – it’s between Essendon and Hawthorn from 2004:
This next ones great, you wonder for a while if anything is going to happen but then it all gets good – I must admit I don’t really know when the gameplay stops and the fighting starts but so what. In fact the gameplay appears not to stop, it’s just there’s fewer players because, and I quote from the commentator, “THERE’S FIFTEEN DIFFERENT FIGHTS GOING ON”. From 2009, this is Richmond against Collingwood:
Not bad this next one but what marks it out is the timing – it occurs when everyone is on their way off the pitch so what we have is a player waiting for the game to stop before making his move. I also like the way the commentator describes the staggering player as “looking for the villain” when in fact he’s looking for a stretcher.
Lastly here’s some clips of the International Rules match between Ireland & Australia. I’ve already mentioned that the rules of AFL and Gaelic football are very similar and in this series they’re tweaked so the competing codes can play each other. Before seeing this clip I had AFL players ranked pretty high up the fight ladder and they will still be high but from the evidence here, as they get shoved around by a bunch of (yes, amateurs) from the old country doesn’t do them any favours.
They’re above most other sports but well below rugby codes. Probably below Gaelic footie as well.
More fights soon…..
