Footy and a Deathmatch

Some of the fieldies are obsessed with Aussie rules Football (or AFL). The guys from the Northern Territory are huge AFL fans and they look down upon rugby… that’s a southerner game (aka New South Wales and Queensland). I have to admit, AFL games are fun to watch, especially now that I know most of the rules. The game basically seems to involve frantic movement of the ball by punching it, kicking it or slapping it. One of the things that makes it more fun to watch than rugby (and there are many) is that the ball can move in any direction at any time. This leads to utter chaos, or at least it looks like utter chaos when in fact it’s somewhat organized chaos. Then when you get close enough to the goal you kick it between tall posts for 6 points. If you miss to either side you still get 1 point and if you miss the outside posts altogether you get nothing. You have to have a pretty terrible kick to get nothing. As one of the fieldies said, “It’s the only game out there where you get 1 point for trying.” I guess it would be similar to our missed field goal when it’s grounded in the end zone. Or is that a punt? I can’t remember. I’d imagine I’ll be watching a fair bit more of the games before the summer is done. I’ve even joined in with the fieldies after work to practise kicking the footy properly. So far I’ve got a typical North American punter’s kick. Maybe eventually I’ll get the Aussie footy kick down.

http://www.afl.com.au/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Football_League

By this point you’re probably wondering what the hell I meant by ‘Deathmatch’. Last night we saw a boar make its way around the edge of the camp. An odd thing about the encounter is that boars (or feral pigs) are well known pests in Australia. However, as a company working in the field we are not allowed to hurt them. We have to get a ranger in to kill them. I’m not sure what sort of sense that makes. I mean, we have a golf club handy for cane toads. A golf club (a 3 wood I believe, gives the shot a bit more arc)! Anyway, that was close to sunset. Later in the evening one of the fieldies found a half-dead dingo in front of his tent. Turns out it had a run in with the boar out in the bush and it had crawled as far as his tent. One of the boar’s tusks caught him in the neck and ripped a large gash. The fieldie ran for a shovel to finish off the dingo.

Ironically that fieldie is our safety officer. You go to him if you need access to the advanced first aid supplies. It’s been debated if we should add the shovel to the first aid supplies now.

Just kidding.

p.s. Dingo howls are eerie. Wolves can make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up a bit, but there’s just something about the sound of a dingo howl that seems a bit off.

p.p.s. I have taken a few videos. I'll be posting any better ones once I'm back in Darwin and I have a better internet connection.