I just caught this very cool game on cable. It was from Ireland, Cork against Tipperary. It looked to be a perfect hybridization between Aussie rules football and what we Americans call soccer.
They used a perfectly round ball, and had two different ways to score, either by kicking it through two tall uprights for a “point,” which scored one, or by kicking it into a pretty standard “goal,” past the goaltender, for three points. The players couldn’t just pick the ball up off of the ground, but had to either grab it on the bounce or kick it off the ground. It appears you can advance the ball by running with it but must periodically either bounce it off the ground or kick the ball to yourself.
Once in a while when someone looked as if he had a good shot, a defender would just suck it up and tackle the guy, earning a yellow card. There was a lot of passing by punching the ball forward, which I sometimes see in rugby. People were getting hurt, but unlike the hands-free version of the sport, nobody seemed to be faking it, which I thoroughly dislike.
I’d like to know all about this interesting and entertaining sport, which the announcers were merely calling, “football.” Does it pre-date Aussie football? What about rugby? I’m hoping we may have some genuine fans who can give some personal perspectives.
By the way, Cork and Tipperary tied, 1-14 to 2-11, I think.
I’m afraid I forget the name of the sport right now, but I know what you mean, and it’s played on the same type of field as is used for another Irish game, Hurling(so I’ve read). Maybe Google that and something like this “Irish Football” will come up.
Thank you, folks! I’m glad to have found a new, interesting, and apparently quite popular sport at my relatively advanced age. I’ll start looking into it.
It’s essentially the same game, but with a much smaller ball (about the size and hardness of a ML baseball, but with enornous seams), and a club (a hurley).
Like Gaelic football, you can’t pick the ball up from the ground or throw, but you can catch it or slap it like a handball (which hurts, I’ve played this game). You can use the hurley like a golf club (a good swing at the ball on the ground), a baseball bat (toss the ball up, and swing for the fences), or even a tennis racket (like an overhead smash).
Significantly faster, and bloodier, than Gaelic football.
I don’t know where you are, but in the US there are some fairly serious leagues for both these sports in around New York and Chicago. Maybe other cities as well.
An aside. Football and hurling in Ireland remain totally amateur. Even in the national championships that can draw nearly 100,000 spectators, the players are not paid. Good thing they have national health insurance, because there is an incredible amount of bloodletting in the games.
Visit the Gaelic Athletic Association website for everything you need to know about both football and hurling. And you can visit your local Irish pub to find out about local leagues - they exist in probably every major city in North America.
Aussie Rules is certainly derived from Gaelic Football. The game was probably introduced during the goldrushes.
Australia/Ireland play an international series using composite rules. IIRC Ireland hold the title.
A couple of Irish have made a transition to AFL. Jim Stynes won the Brownlow Medal (equivalent on the AFL MVP). Tadhg Kennelly is currenty on the Sydney Swans list.
Sadly, Aussie rules is probably not derived from Gaelic football, but from Rugby football. The founders of the game, and those who codified the first rules, were all men educated in English public schools who had moved to Victoria and were running schools there. The game they codified was based on the games they had played when at school themselves - early versions of Rugby football and, to a lesser extent, soccer.
Aussie Rules and Gaelic football are now closer to one another than either of them is to any other code, but this appears to be coincidence.
The origin of games is tough to figure out. UDS’s view is given support on this (semi-official) page. In recent years, here in Australia, the view expressed on this page - that the Australian game is a codified version of a traditional Aboriginal game - has gained much currency (particularly given the history of one Wills, a significant figure in the game’s history).
But I agree that it appears that similarities between Aussie Rules and Gaelic football appear to be coincidental. The hybrid game is not bad though.
The view that Aussie Rules is descended from an aboriginal game is attractive, but not very convincingly argued, at least on the page to which you link. Marking followed by an unfettered kick is not unique to Aussie Rules; the other page to which you link point out that it came from Rugby. Nor is the drop-kick unique; it features in Gaelic football.
It also strikes me as questionable that, given the prejudices of the age, Victorian schoomasters would regard an aboriginal sport as an appropriate one to adopt for their charges, who were being raised to be English gentlemen. And, whatever Wills’ connections with aboriginals may have been, we know that he was captain of football at Rugby School; I’m guessing that this is likely to have been the greater influence on his sporting tastes.
In the end, of course, it doesn’t matter where it came from. Aussie rules is a spectacular game.
TwistofFate and manwithaplan are your men for this one.
Great sport to look at live and it is the biggest spectator sport in Ireland. Croke Park which is the main stadium in Dublin just got a face lift and recently had ~75k attendance(stadium is not finished yet 80k+ AFAIK is the target) at the Leinster final which Dublin won BTW.
Hurling is a real bastard of a game but amazing to love at live. You see lots of players with no front teeth and many a guy walks into work on Monday with bruises and black eyes which are blamed on Hurling whether this is true or not
The two games are played very aggressively indeed and as already mention the players are armatures but a lot of them end up owning pubs for some reason
Glad you like the sport. Oh and in Ireland Gaelic football is called football and soccer is called football as well or the foreign game depending on who you’re talking to.
Hurling is fantastic. Watch it, love it.
Gaelic footy is fairly cool too, but hurling is my preference.
yojimbo, you call gaelic football just football? Weird, I am a Dubliner too, and I (and mine) just call it gaelic
I love watching hurling and Gaelic football. Did you see it on WNVT Sofa King? If so, keep your eyes open for hurling which is also shown on WNVT.
Can anybody give me general info on the amount of injuries in hurling? I’ve watched a fair number of games and it seems incredibly dangerous. But I’ve never seen a bad injury. It seems to me that players would be hit in the face a lot, but I don’t really see that when I watch a game. Is there a website around that discusses this kind of thing?
They are both fantastic games. We had the North American Championships here in Chicago a couple years back. This included both men’s and women’s games. In fact the women’s games were some of the best. Although for some reason the call women’s Hurling “Camoogie”.
They have fairly competitive games every Sunday at Chicago Gaelic Park starting at around noon. I’ll be the non-Irish looking fan drinking a cider in the stands.
I had seen this on cable as well (in fact, it was WNVT, Zoff), and wondered what it was. Learning things like this makes me proud to be of Irish descent.
There are two different games for tyhe women. traditional hurling, and camogie. Camogie uses smaller goals and there is less arial play than hurling, but it is still a good game to watch.
There are alot of injuries, but the majority of injuries are simply “played through”, meaning that the player will stay on the pitch and play despite his injury depending on how long is pain threshold lasts, the manager makes a tactical change or common sense prevails
Injuries in hurling are much more common at grassroots level that at the elite end of the sport. The best players’ level of technical skill mean that they get injured less. There are fewer ‘wild pulls’ (reckless swings of the hurley) and they always protect their hands with the hurley when fielding a high ball. Unfortunately, it’s every man for himself in club and junior games.
Sofa King, the Cork/Tipperary match was a classic - Tipp’s Declan Browne and Cork’s Colin Corkery (the portly chap) are two of the best exponents of the game around. You might be interested to know that Cork hammered Tipp in the replay - they won by 19 points.
As a fan, I’m having the best football summer (summer is when it all happens) for a long time. Dublin (my county) have won the Leinster Championship for the first time since 1995 and drew with Donegal on Monday in the All-Ireland Quarter Finals. The replay is the week after next. I have had three great days out at the magnificent new Croke Park and will get at least one more. My wife is from Kerry, who are the aristocrats of Gaelic football (31 All-Ireland titles) and they won their quarter final last weekend. A Dublin/Kerry final involving near marital breakdown, a fight for the allegiance of our two-month old daughter etc. remains a possibility. This would renew the classic rivalry between the counties of the 1970s and 1980s, when they won every All-Ireland between 1975 and 1986 (unfortunately Kerry won eight of them). I’m shaking with excitement at the prospect.
And this weekend, it’s Clare vs. Waterford in the hurling semi-final. Waterford have got further in the championship that they have in over 40 year. People visited graves when they won the Munster title. Clare shocked a fancied Galway team in the last round. There’ll be nothing left on the field on the day - it doesn’t get any better than this.
Sorry, Kerry and Dublin won every All-Ireland between 1974 and 1986 except for Offaly’s famous last minute win over Kerry in the 1982 All-Ireland final (in case Twisty pulls me up on it.;))
Thanks for the injury info, TwistofFate and manwithaplan. I was watching part of a game a few nights ago and there was an injury but it was from an elbow. I thought the technical ability might reduce injuries and others would play with pain, but I was curious if I just wasn’t watching enough to see the really nasty stuff.
