Hail to the Cats

Easter Monday is a public holiday here, so after getting up to FaceTime with LT's family for Easter (good to see everyone!), we headed back to Melbourne and prepared for an afternoon at an Aussie rules football match.  After a week of picture perfect weather, ma and pa Turnbull began to doubt our whinging about the crazy weather here ... until this day.  As we prepared to depart for the tram to the game, downpour of hail out of nowhere!  An audible was called on gametime gear and we all-weathered up.  I think we cycled between cold wind and rain, then sunny and 68 degrees eight times during the game.  That's more like Melbourne weather.

But the weather wasn't the only excitement.  The match between the Geelong Cats (our chosen team) and the Hawthorne Hawks was one for the ages.  Despite a number of shifts in momentum, the Hawks led for much of the match and entered the fourth quarter up 18.  Despite a few more bouts of rain, Geelong fought back kicking a goal to lead the match for what seemed to be the first time 92-88.

Now a quick reprieve to explain how the AFL chooses to run the clock.  Each quarter of the game is 20 minutes with the clock stopping after goals, out-of-bounds plays, major injuries, etc.  You see this clock if you watch it on TV ... until the last 10 minutes of the game. The clock disappears for to the added drama of not knowing when the final horn will sound.  Inside the stadium, the 20 minute clock is not displayed. The crowd and players just see a continuously running clock, neither having any idea when each quarter horn will sound.  You just know the horn for a typical quarter sounds in the 28 to 32 minute range.

Back to the game.  Geelong goes up 4 and the running clock reads somewhere around 26 minutes.  A Geelong player was knocked out during play of this quarter resulting in one of very few injury stoppages.  This one is going to be to the high side of the range.  There's some back and forth at the center of the oval following the bounce and then the ball goes into Hawthorne's wide open Buddy Franklin, one of the most dynamic players in the game.  He's inside Hawthorne's forward 50 (goal kicking range ... a goal is 6 points) all alone.  Instead of taking a bounce and running it all the way to the posts to kick it through for a certain goal and the lead, he kicks one along the ground from 35 meters out.  The wet turf eats the ball up and it comes up short and wide.  Geelong grabs possession and clears only to have Hawthorne quickly respond and move it back into their forward 50 with about 28:30 on the clock.  From that point, the ball stays in Hawthorne goal kicking range for the duration of the game, both sides fighting for possession of a slippery football on a wet field and Hawthorne managing to get off two kicks at goal which both go for behinds (1 point, basically kicking just wide of a goal) during that period.  The pressure was immense, the effort from both sides on the field incredible, and the crowd insane.  Nobody heard the final horn which blew sometime around 32:00 on the clock, the players just stopped playing.  Many of them exhausted laying on the turf.  Geelong wins 92-90.  Incredible finish!

Great end to a great Easter weekend!

Geelong Cats mascot.  Go Cats!

Pre-game warm-up.  Already a guy down on the field.

It rained on us.

Rained on them too.

He rained on somebody's parade.

The wind and rain were a bit chilly from time to time.  Did I mention it
 was also sunny and 68 for a good portion of the game?  No complaints
 about too hot or too cold from this bundled ninja so I shouldn't judge.

The MCG (Melbourne Cricket Grounds).  It can hold around 100,000.  The dimensions of the footy playing oval are somewhere around 175m end-to-end, 150m side-to-side.  You can see the goal posts to the right side of the picture.  Kick the football anywhere between the center two posts of your offensive end and it's a "goal" for 6 points.  Miss the center two posts, but stay within the outer two posts and it's a "behind" for 1 point.  Following a goal, the ball goes out to the center of the field for a bounce, basically a jump ball.  Following a behind, the ball is played out from a square in front of the goal posts by the team defending that end.

Final score: Geelong 92 - Hawthorne 90.
The numbers in front are the number of goals
and number of behinds.  (14*6) + (8*1) = 92.