World Footy News

The University of Birmingham Sharks played two fixtures in late November against Britain's oldest Australian rules teams - the prestigious universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

On November 13th, the Sharks took on Cambridge in a 9-a-side match, with Birmingham's 15 British locals defeating Cambridge's all-Australian squad by 13 points.

The following weekend saw Birmingham Uni take on Oxford, in the Sharks' first-ever 18-a-side match. On the wide open spaces of Oxford Uni's full-sized ground, the Sharks were outclassed but not disgraced, going down by 58 points, 14.8 (92) to 5.4 (34).

The extreme cold and huge snowfalls of the northern winter unfortunately saw the cancellation of the Uni of Birmingham's third Aussie rules match of the season, which was planned against the Leeds Metropolitan Uni Chiefs. However, the season is scheduled to recommence in late January with a clash against the Chiefs and another against the University of Chichester Cougars.

The following report is courtesy of Dave Wheaton and first appeared in the University of Birmingham's student newspaper, The Redbrick.

Sat­ur­day 20th Novem­ber was yet another note­wor­thy day in the his­tory of the freshly con­sti­tuted Uni­ver­sity of Birm­ing­ham Aussie Rules Foot­ball team; a day wor­thy of a fea­ture in The Lion. The addi­tion of a sur­pris­ingly large num­ber of tal­ented first years, enabled the squad to travel to Oxford Uni­ver­sity for their first authen­tic 18-a-side con­test con­fi­dent they could present a tough challenge.

9.30am: Meet­ing in Selly Oak

Win­ter was def­i­nitely start­ing to take over Selly Oak as the team gath­ered, shiv­er­ing around the minibus on a somber West Mid­lands morn­ing. As I joined the cir­cle of play­ers in the car park, the atmos­phere warmed up as a chat about the game began in antic­i­pa­tion of the hard hit­ting and silky play that was surely to fol­low. A pleas­ant sur­prise was the pres­ence of three for­mer play­ers, grad­u­ates now play­ing for Great Britain and Eng­land, Sean Wal­ton, Joe Watkins and Rob Wood­ward. It was as though the cap­tain had reunited the whole Birm­ing­ham Aussie Rules fam­ily in prepa­ra­tion for the bat­tle that was to ensue that after­noon, the ball-up being planned for 1pm.

9.45am:

After suc­cess­fully cram­ming every­one into the minibus, the team was given a quick low­down on their oppo­nents. Oxford Uni­ver­sity has had an Aussie Rules Foot­ball team for almost 80 years and is com­posed almost entirely of Aus­tralian and Irish play­ers. In 2009, in their annual var­sity game against Cam­bridge, a sim­i­larly com­pe­tent side, they defended the Var­sity Cup with a 43 point vic­tory. This was a sign of encour­age­ment to the Birm­ing­ham play­ers. Joy­ful ban­ter emanated from the bus for the next two hours through the lus­cious towns of Soli­hull, Ban­bury and finally Oxford.

12.30pm:

Ten­sion went up a notch as the guests jogged onto the mon­u­men­tal 18-a-side pitch in front of a sur­pris­ingly large trav­el­ling crowd. A few stu­dents obvi­ously under­stood how mean­ing­ful this con­fronta­tion was going to be. At 1pm the ball went up, sig­nal­ing the start of an appre­hen­sive first quar­ter, with nei­ther team know­ing what to expect from each another. It soon became appar­ent though that the hosts enter­tained a slight tech­ni­cal edge over Birm­ing­ham and greater expe­ri­ence of the way an 18-a-side game is organ­ised. This was to be a recur­ring theme through­out the game. Oxford’s accu­racy in front of goal meant the first quar­ter ended 32–14, the home team hav­ing scored 5 goals for 2 behinds and the vis­i­tors 2 goals for 2 behinds.

Through­out the next quar­ter, Birm­ing­ham rapidly came to grips with the enor­mity of the pitch. Impres­sive work by ruck-rovers Chris Brit­ton and Tom Sim­monds ensured a stronger con­test in mid­field, with Wal­ton, play­ing as ruck-man, win­ning every con­test. And an exem­plary per­for­mance by Dan Di-Lieto up front made sure Birm­ing­ham held on, trail­ing by just fif­teen points at half time.

It was in the third and fourth quar­ters that the Shark’s inex­pe­ri­ence of 18-a-side really took its toll. It wasn’t long before Oxford demon­strated the lethal accu­racy in front of goal that makes them the best uni­ver­sity team in the coun­try. Using tac­ti­cal nous, they adapted their kick­ing and pass­ing to com­pen­sate for fatigue. And unsur­pris­ingly, the hosts added eight more goals in the two final quar­ters, mak­ing the final score 92–34.

Post-match analy­sis, Tim Smith, Birm­ing­ham Uni Sharks President:

I think we were a bit dazed by the daunt­ing size of the pitch. It was hard to adapt to a dras­ti­cally new orga­ni­za­tion com­pared to 9-a-side which we are used to. I main­tain, how­ever, that this was by no means a weak per­for­mance by our team as we offered a very strong con­test right until the final quar­ter.

I’d like to men­tion that Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity got 7 points past this same team last year, which demon­strates the qual­ity of the Oxford side. I am proud of my play­ers for achiev­ing a decently high scor­ing ratio. We gained an incred­i­ble amount of expe­ri­ence from this game. It’s only by play­ing the best that you become the best and that is what I’d like the play­ers to retain from today.

Sam Stranks, Oxford Uni­ver­sity Aussie Rules Foot­ball Club President:

I could not believe it when Birmingham’s winger told me none of these guys are Aussies. They have achieved a high stan­dard of play after only two years of exis­tence.

I think it was because of our supe­rior know-how of the game and a cou­ple of very tech­ni­cally tal­ented key players that we got such a big mar­gin in the sec­ond half of the game.

Oxford University vs University of Birmingham Sharks, 20th November 2010

University of Birmingham Sharks vs Cambridge University, 13th November 2010