Aussie Rules football arrives in Huddersfield for the first time

Jul 2 2009 by Dougie Thomson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Aussie Rules arrived in Huddersfield for the first time and Examiner correspondent IAN HIRST sampled first hand the sport from Down Under

A TASTE of Australia descended on us when Huddersfield Rams staged their round of the UK Australian Football League Central Division.

Aussie Rules, as it is known, is becoming ever more popular in this country and the Rams have enjoyed a successful start to their first season.

The Rams were scheduled to play Leeds Bombers at Lockwood Park in their home round, while in the other game Birmingham Bears were tackling Liverpool Eagles.

However, the Bears were unavailable, so there was a change in format.

In UK Australian Football, the match starts with nine players per side, compared with the traditional 18-a-side in Australia.

Due to the absence of Birmingham, a 12-a-side game took place with Huddersfield taking on a combined Leeds and Liverpool team.

As expected, the newly-formed ‘Leederpool’ team struggled early on as they got to know each other and the Rams dominated.

In a fast-paced game and bruising encounter – players can tackle only between the knees and the shoulders – Huddersfield always looked in control and demonstrated why they are leaders of the Central Division.

The final score was Huddersfield Rams 155, scoring 23 goals (six points for kicking between the central posts) and 17 behinds (one point for kicking inside the outer posts), to Leederpool’s 48.

Brian Clark, the former Darwin and Queensland player who runs the UK League, officiated the match and was impressed.

“The most important thing was that we had a game of football, and it was a good, hard game played in a good spirit” he said.

“The League is still a work in progress and in the first year we allow for some leniency as we know that teams will sometimes struggle for players.”

Rams coach Neil Morrison, the only Australian in the team, was also encouraged by the day’s events, especially with juniors taking part in an earlier training session and a number of supporters going along to watch.

“It’s a historic day,” said Morrison. “It’s certainly a start of something new.

“We had 10 juniors come down for the training session which is great, because our next step will hopefully be to have a junior set up. Once people get a taste of the game they can’t get enough – they become addicted.

“When we started out, we had four players but now we have a squad of 20, where only 15 can be in a matchday squad.

“Karl Haigh is the main driving force behind this and I can’t speak highly enough of what he has done. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought we would come this far when we started out and reach the top.”