League for non-leaguies

Ahead of this week’s Origin game, life-time AFL fan Jan Courtin had a red-hot go at explaining rugby league to her fellow AFL fans:

My understanding of rugby league is:
· The men who play it are big brutes, and some have huge necks
· Some, like Alfie Langer and Jonathon Thurston, are smaller brutes but can be very handy
· Goalposts are two uprights with a horizontal cross-bar
· A goal is a try and worth four points
· A kick after the try becomes a conversion and is two points if it goes over the cross-bar
· A point is two points but can also be a point, depending on whatever
· A poster is two points
· ”Baaaall” is I-don’t-know-what but you can hold the ball as long as you want until six sets are up before you get it over the try line or give it back to the other brutes
· A free kick is a penalty
· A free is also a scrum
· A scrum is when these brutes put their heads into other brutes’ bums, but it’s not even a whiff compared to the other form of the game
· A ball-up is perhaps a scrum

· An umpire is a referee
· A mark is a catch
· A tackle is a mother of a tackle after which normal people would be dead
· Around the neck is just fine, unless it’s a strangle
· Around the legs is fine too
· A trip is fine too – I think
· Dropping the ball is OK if it goes backwards
· Dropping the ball is not OK if going forward
· A 50 metre penalty is when they get to kick it as far as they can (usually about 30 metres) forward and out of bounds on the full – or is it a yellow card or a send-off? Or maybe that’s a report? Or maybe I’m getting confused with soccer?
· A handball is a throw which is fine (and this game is mostly throwing) as long as it goes backwards
· In the back never happens because they always run towards each other
· It helps if you can run fast, in the unlikely event that you can jump over or across or under a brute and then run like hell to the other end without getting caught and get the ball over the try line
· You don’t need to be very good at kicking the ball as it hardly ever happens
· You do need to be good at kicking the ball when it sits on top of a bit of plastic at the start of the game and when converting over the cross-bar for two points
· Out of bounds on the full is absolutely fine when you get a penalty
· Out of bounds on the full is not fine unless it is a penalty – I think
· The siren is a hooter
· And, you need to know how to say “YEAH MATE, YEAH MATE” at least six times in a very short sentence if you are being interviewed.

Gold.