AFL's Newest Fans... Sort of...

Last Saturday night James went with Tammy, Dad, Jonny, Robbie and Jonny's old mission friend to an AFL game.  It was the first live AFL game for at least James and Tammy, and they seemed to have an awesome time.  Robbie is a die hard fan, and I think he was excited to share his passion with the fam a little bit :)  The Gold Coast Suns (who apparently aren't great this season) were playing... some other team, who needed this win to get into the final.  Our family contingent decided to go for the Suns - the closest to a home team playing :)

Tammy sent me some pictures on her phone while the game was on:

This made me grin - such a fun photo!  I asked James later why the sign said 'SUPER'.  He said he asked Robbie the same question, and Robbie said that's just the way it is at AFL  :)

James tells me he was looking up at a ball coming through the goal for this photo - they were right behind the posts.

The other half... :)

James got home 'SUPER' late (haha).  He said every quarter was about 30 minutes... give or take... as in, the refs just call quarter time whenever they feel like it.  He asked Robbie about it, and Robbie said that the refs are usually biased to the home team - so when the Suns were doing well, the quarters went for longer, and then when they weren't doing well, the refs called time at 26 or 28 minutes.  I told James that sounded ridiculous and not legit at all, but he said that's what Robbie said, and Robbie IS the AFL fan after all!

James, Dad and Tammy also seemed very impressed with the refs, and the 'dancing with flags' they do.  I was given demonstrations by half the family :)  Very entertaining.  The refs in AFL are exceptionally intense, and there are strict routines they follow for different calls.  The refs, were James' favourite part of the game.

They also enjoyed the fans.  Apparently they were surrounded by supporters of the opposing team, who were extremely passionate.  Because they were sitting right behind the posts, the ball came into the crowd when the goals were kicked.  There were nets up before the start of the game while they practised their kicking.  Then when the game started they took the nets down, and James said Tammy was horrified - lol!!! :)  But anyway, once when the ball came into the crowd, and a Suns player came to get it off whoever had caught it, and the guy in the crowd who had it seemed to hate the Suns, and he pegged it at the Suns player as hard as he could, then started cheering his head off, all by himself.  By the end of the game the opposing fans were pretty distraught though, because the Suns had an awesome game and won, forcing the other team (whose name I really could have looked up but didn't...) out of the finals!!  (this did not push the Suns into the final - they were already too low :P).

Anyway, sounds like it was a really fun/ny night, and they all enjoyed the experience, even though I didn't hear a word from any of them about the actual game involving players/great kicks, etc!! :)  Tammy actually has a goal to get to a bunch of different sporting events this year, and so hopefully we hear more about it all from her sometime soon :)

I'm excited for when the girls are old enough to go out for fun experiences like this!! :)