Lifestyle and Leisure
Know your Aussie sport
Trying to integrate into Aussie life without taking at least a passing interest in sport will prove to be almost impossible once you arrive Down Under, writes David Fuller
Depending on the state you settle in you can be sure that you will find yourself surrounded by thousands of either rugby league, union or Aussie rules football fanatics, as well as plenty of cricket nuts and even a fair few football (or soccer as it will be more commonly referred as in Oz) devotees. And as any self-respecting fan knows, taking an interest in sport is always much more exciting if there's something riding on it for you. Therefore, just as you may support a rugby, cricket or football team in Britain, you will probably want to start following an Australian side as soon as you move Down Under.
But just what club teams should you choose to support? After all, you don't want to plump for one only to to find they have about as much chance of winning anything as Sunderland do of staying up in this year's Premier League. To help you decide, this is our guide to the best (and worst) sport sides in Australia:
Australian Rules Football
The Australian Football League (AFL) has been dominated in terms of participation by teams from Victoria since the league's formation in 1989. Currently ten of the 16 teams which make up the league are based in the state. But in spite of this statistic, a Victorian side has failed to win the AFL Championship (known as the 'Premier') since Essendon triumphed over Melbourne back in 2000. More worryingly, a team from the state has not even reached a final in the last two seasons, Collingwood being the last to do so in 2003.
Since the turn of the millennium Brisbane Lions (three times consecutively between 2001 and 2003), Port Adelaide and most recently the Sydney Swans have each topped the AFL summit, with the Lions also finishing as the losing finalists in 2004. In terms of overall championships (including Victorian Football League titles – this was the competition that formed the basis of the AFL) Victorian sides Carlton and Essendon have been the most successful clubs, boasting 16 championships each, their last ones coming in 1995 and 1993 respectively.
Since the AFL began, the Brisbane Lions with three Premier titles, followed by the West Coast Eagles and Adelaide Crows with two apiece, have been the most prosperous sides. St Kilda hold the unwanted record for the most wooden spoons, with 26 last-placed finishes.
Rugby Union
Until the late 1980s and early 1990s rugby union was a game that stirred hardly any national interest outside of the east coast states of New South Wales and Queensland. In fact, it was only the Wallabies' victory over England in the 1991 World Cup final which really opened up the game's popularity nationwide. Because of this it has only been very recently that any sort of domestic rugby union tournament has been established – the Telstra Australian Rugby Shield which was first competed for in 2000.
In the six years the competition has been running the New South Wales Country Cockatoos have been the most honoured side, winning three shields, while Perth Gold have won the tournament twice and the Queensland Country Heelers once. However, as the competition excludes the participation of any player either contracted to or belonging to an academy of the Wallabies, the cream of Australia's union players tend to play for one of the four sides that compete in the Super 14 – the southern hemisphere's premier rugby competition which also includes teams from South Africa and New Zealand.
Of the four Aussie representatives in this competition – the ACT Brumbies, NSW Waratahs, Queensland Reds and most recently the Perth-based Western Force – it is only the Brumbies who have tasted championship success, winning the tournament twice in 2001 and 2004. They have also finished runners up on three occasions – 1997, 2000 and 2002. The Waratahs are the only other Australian team to have made the final, losing to New Zealand's the Crusaders in 2005, while the Reds have only managed to make the end of season play-offs three times in the competition's ten-year history.
The Western Force are currently only in their first season, following the Super 14's expansion from the Super 12, but at the time of writing have yet to win a game. The Brumbies and Waratahs are fairing far better, however, in third and fourth place respectively. The Reds are 11th with just one win from five matches.
Rugby League
While the AFL assumed control of the Victorian Football League in order to establish a national competition for Aussie Rules Football, the National Rugby League (NRL) built on foundations laid by the Australian Rugby League and its predecessor the New South Wales Rugby League. And just as Victorian team's dominate the line up of sides in the ARL, something similar has happened in the NRL, with nine of the competing 15 teams hailing from New South Wales. Victoria, the ACT and Queensland are the only other states or territories to have sides present in the competition, while there are also two Kiwi teams in the league's current line up.
However, having more teams in the league has not guaranteed a team from New South Wales dominating the tournament, just as more Victorian sides being prevalent in the AFL hasn't guaranteed that state success (at least not recently) in Aussie Rules. Since 1998 the only team to get their hands on more than one NRL Trophy has been the Brisbane Broncos, winning the trophy in 1998 and 2000. Melbourne Storm in 1999 and Canterbury Bulldogs in 2004 are the two other non-NSW based teams to lift the trophy. Newcastle Knights, Sydney Roosters, Penrith Panthers and most recently Wests Tigers have been the representatives from New South Wales to have tasted success in the competition.
Cricket
The Pura Cup (formerly known as the Sheffield Shield) is the most established national honour in Australian sport. Donated to the Australian Cricket Board by the Earl of Sheffield in 1891, the cup is currently competed for by teams from all six states – New South Wales Blues, Victorian Bushrangers, Southern Redbacks, Western Warriors, Queensland Bulls and Tasmanian Tigers.
Thought to be the highest-standard domestic cricket league anywhere in the world, all of Australia's Test players are associated with one of the teams, and, unlike British county teams, the sides are extremely well supported. Historically, New South Wales Blues, one of the competition's founder teams along with the Bushrangers and Redbacks, have been the most successful team, winning the Sheffield Shield/Pura Cup on 44 occasions, including twice in the last three years.
Queensland have arguably been the most consistent team in recent years, reaching every final in the last seven, winning three.
The Tasmanian Tigers – the league's newest team, joining in the 1982–83 season – are the only team to have never won the Pura Cup. In addition to the four-day Pura Cup competition, there is also a one day limited overs tournament – the ING Cup. This competition has existed in many different guises since it was first competed for in the 1969–70 season, and features the same six teams than make up the Pura Cup, along with the Black Caps (from New Zealand) and the Canberra Comets.
The Western Warriors hold the record for the most limited-over championships with 11, the most recent being in 2003–04. The current champions are NSW, while Tasmania, now led by Australia captain Ricky Ponting, have tasted success in the one day game twice, lifting the Cup in 1978–79 and 2004–05
Football (soccer)
After years of trying to establish football as a mainstream sport in Australia, it appears that the game could now finally challenge Aussie Rules and the two rugby football codes for a place in the hearts of Aussie sport fans. The inaugural Hyundai-A league season, which has only recently ended, brought in average crowds of 10,861 to each game, with fan interest growing as the season went on.
Sydney FC, fuelled by the goals and creativity of former Manchester United striker Dwight Yorke, were the league's first outright champions, beating the Central Coast Mariners 1-0 in the final. However, Adelaide United won the league itself, finishing seven points ahead of Sydney, before losing 1-0 to the Mariners in the preliminary final stage of the play-offs. The New Zealand Knights finished bottom of the league, winning just one of their 21 matches.
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