Week 2 in Australia

Much has happened over the last week.  For one, Tyler Violette, the last  of this year's Americans to play for Woodville, arrived on Tuesday.  He had a few hours of rest before getting suited up for practice, the first one us foreigners were able to attend.  Practices here aren't too different than what we're used to back in the States.  The training leads off with line drills and shooting followed by some one-on-ones prior to scrimmaging. The atmosphere is great as the practices consist of hard work, good communication and a few laughs here and there. 

Throughout the years in America we've gotten used to turf fields.  Over here, all the fields we play on are grass, which we were originally worried about.  The truth is however that every one of the fields we have stepped on so far has been extremely well groomed which makes for great playing surfaces.  After playing at these fields I don't know if I could ever go back to the grass fields in America.

The highlight of the week however was the Footy game.  For those of you who don't know what Footy is, it's a huge sport over here.  To describe it would be difficult as I am still learning about it but think of a mix between rugby, soccer, American football and I'm reluctant to say, even a little bit of quidditch thrown in there..  We just returned from the Adelaide Crows v. Collingwood Mag Pies game.  It is an extremely exciting sport to watch, although it was tough to sit through the 4th quarter tonight as Adelaide blew a lead and at times seemed completely uninspired.  Although the Crows ended up losing by about 20 points, the experience was still great and I'm looking forward to watching more of it through the months ahead. 

Check in again in the next day or two as we play Glenelg tomorrow... a HUGE game!

 

We Americans at the Adelaide Crows game.  From left to right, Tyler Violette, Peter Hanson (myself) and Christian Cook. (Note the sweet Crows paraphernalia around our necks)