Monday, April 23, 2007

The Manly Sea Eagles

Australia is crazy about sports, and "football" means different things to different people here. There's rugby league, rugby union, and Aussie rules, all of which are full-contact sports, as well as soccer (no hands!), and even some American football. Each game has its own devoted following, and somehow, none of this gets in the way of people following cricket too!

Bryan is a hard-core supporter of the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, a rugby league team based in the Northern beach suburb of Narrabeen. When our collaborator David visited us from Boston, Bryan took us to watch the Sea Eagles play the Gold Coast Titans, so that we could experience this essential bit of Australiana for ourselves.

Astronomers at the Manly game
Astronomers observing (sports) stars in the field.
Shami, Bryan, David, and Stephen: Photo by Meghan, caption thanks to Stephen!

Bryan gave us a quick rundown on the rules of the game, taught us the catch-all statement for the game post-mortem ("The big guy had a great game, eh?") and even loaned us Manly regalia for the full effect, and then we were off!

Mid-air acrobatics
It was a cool, rainy afternoon as the Sea Eagles played the visiting Titans. It was a fast and athletic game, with plenty of acrobatic moves and bone-crunching tackles. The stands were packed with Manly colors, and there was plenty of hearty cheering for the home team and booing of bad calls by the referees.


A flying tackle Crowds at the game

Fortunately, Manly won a famous victory, scoring 3 tries and 3 goals to 1 and 1, and the final score of 20-6 made for a happy crowd at the end of the game!

5 comments:

Sumitra Chatterjee said...

Reminds you of cheering for the NDP football team in the Stadium!!:)

test said...

Nice pic, the title should be "Astronomers observing (sports) stars in the field." :P

Bryan said...

Tsk tsk. 20 points is 3 tries and *four* goals. Did you learn nothing from all my tutelage??

(And the Eagles are based in Brookvale, not Narrabeen.)

Bryan said...

Is it OK for me to use the group photo on my facebook page?

Anonymous said...

Rugby League or Rugby Union? Which is better? Personally i
think Rugby League Out Classes union by far, though being a
Wakefield Trinty Wildcats fans makes me a little biased!
However i do admit that internationally rugby league needs
some work so Rugby union has that on its side but what about
the game itself? It seem just like a collection of dog piles
most of the time followed by short lived runs which either
involve running straight into the other teams players or
straight to the try line!

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