During the past eight months, Australia has been dominated by two sports: Aussie Rules football and rugby league.

Recently, we gave you A Girl’s Very Basic Guide to Aussie Rules Football (AFL). This week, with the countdown on to the Grand Final, we’re focussing on rugby league.

Rugby league or ‘league’ as it’s also commonly known, is a brutal, bruising, bloody game and one of Australia’s most popular sports. It has been played here since 1908. There are 16 teams in the league, including my team, the Bulldogs.

As a little girl, I grew up in the Bulldogs’ heartland of Canterbury-Bankstown in Sydney’s southwest. Rugby league and the Bulldogs were therefore a part of my childhood as much as Star Wars and Barbie-though I have to confess that the Bulldogs weren’t my team originally. In Year 1, I was actually a Cronulla Sharks supporter because for some reason my favourite animal was the shark (I hadn’t seen Jaws yet) and I think I only switched to the Bulldogs because of peer pressure!

Nowadays as an adult, the Bulldogs are still my team, and even though I live in Canberra now, I will NEVER EVER support the Canberra Raiders. But if the Bulldogs lose, I certainly don’t feel the same kind of “pain that hits you like a fist” that Julia Gillard said she felt when she lost power. If the Bulldogs lose, I can still eat, drink, have high teas, and be merry. Unlike my footy mad and Sydney Roosters-obsessed friend, Fiona, when my team loses, I still have the use of my limbs and senses to carry on with my everyday life.

And why? Because the truth is, my only real interest in rugby league these days is the 1.78 m tall, dark haired hunk of flesh called Cooper Cronk from the Melbourne Storm. And the hunk of flesh called Lote Tuqiri from the West Tigers. And golden haired Daly Cherry-Evans from Manly. And Beau Ryan of the Sharks. And then there’s Sonny Bill Williams, Jarryd Hayne, and Daniel Mortimer with his fine blue eyes and pretty face…Yes, my interest in rugby league these days is because of the Festival of the Hunk that’s been on these last eight months. In my opinion, Channing Tatum and Ryan Gosling are stick insects compared to rugby league’s delectable feasts of flesh!

But I don’t want to get too carried away with my swooning here. This article is about the basics of rugby league, after all. So for the uninitiated and uninterested among you, here are some essentials and some interesting facts about rugby league.

Rugby League Basics

• Rugby league is played on a rectangular field with goal posts at each end.
• The aim of the game is to score points by placing the ball on or beyond your opponent’s goal line (this is known as a try) or kicking the ball through your opponent’s goal posts.
• You can win points by scoring tries (a try is worth 4 points) and when converting your try immediately afterwards by kicking the ball through the goal posts (2 points). You can also score points by kicking penalty goals, or field goals during any time of play.
• A game is played by two teams consisting of 13 players over two 40 minute halves.
• There are two kinds of players: forwards and backs. And they wear numbers on their jerseys that match their positions. Numbers 1 to 7 are the backs. They usually score the tries. The forwards are numbered 8 to 13. The forwards are the muscle men, or as Tony Squires calls them in his excellent 2009 book, Cracking the Footy Codes, “the nightclub bouncers of the code.”
• Number 7 is the position of halfback. And halfbacks tend to be the thinkers/strategists in their team. Cooper Cronk from the Melbourne Storm wears the number 7 jersey. And he wears it VERY well indeed!
• During play, if your team has the football, you can only pass it backwards to your team mates and never forwards. You can pass the ball to one another as many times as you like until the person with the football is tackled.
• The player who is tackled must hold on to the ball.
• If your team gets tackled six times in a row while in possession of the football, then you must hand over the ball to the opposition.
• You can’t tackle a player unless they have the ball.
• A scrum is when six players from each team shove and push against each other as the football is placed on the ground between them. The scrum used to be a real contest, but now it’s just a way to restart play.
• You’ll regularly hear the words ‘knock on’ during a game. A knock on basically means a player has fumbled with the ball when trying to catch it.
• There are heaps of other rules of play in rugby league, but all I need to know is that Cooper Cronk follows them most of the time, and that he looks very good when he does!
•  The National Rugby League (NRL) is the governing body that runs the nation-wide competition.
• There are 26 rounds of games in the NRL beginning in March every year. In September, only 8 teams make it to the elimination finals. And the grand final between the two teams who make it through the elimination finals takes place every year on the first weekend in October.
• There are sixteen teams in the NRL competition. They are: Sydney Roosters, Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, Cronulla Sharks, West Tigers, Parramatta Eels, South Sydney Rabbitohs, Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, Penrith Panthers, St George-Illawarra Dragons, Newcastle Knights, Melbourne Storm, North Queensland Cowboys, Brisbane Broncos, Gold Coast Titans, New Zealand Warriors, and the Canberra Raiders.
• During the NRL year, a best-of-three games series is also played between players representing two states: New South Wales (the Blues) and Queensland (the Maroons). This series is known as State of Origin and it began in 1982. Since 2006, Queensland has won every series, much to the despair and agony of New South Wales’ fans. By the way, Cooper Cronk plays for Queensland, and he looks just as good in a Maroons jersey and shorts as he does in his Melbourne Storm jersey and shorts.

Some interesting facts

• Rugby league’s origins lie in rugby union. In 1895 in England,  rugby union teams from the north of England broke away from the country’s Rugby Football Union and created their own: the Northern Rugby Football Union.  The split had a lot to do with payment to players. The Northern Union created a new version of rugby that was much faster. Over time, this became known as rugby league.
• Rugby league began in Australia in 1908. The first team said to be created were the Glebe ‘Dirty Reds’ but they folded in 1929. Of the nine foundation teams that began in 1908, only two are left today: South Sydney, and the Sydney Roosters (then known as Eastern Suburbs).
• In 1908, the admission fee to a rugby league game was 10 cents.
• The Bulldogs were created in 1935 and were originally called the Berries.
• The Canberra Raiders entered the competition in 1982. They have won three grand finals: in 1989, 1990 and 1994.
• The Canberra Raiders’ mascot is a Viking and his name is Victor.
• According to one story, the lime green colour of the Canberra Raiders was inspired by the colour of a sofa in the club chairman’s office.
• Actor  Russell Crowe is a part owner of the South Sydney Rabbitohs.
• In the 1970s and 1980s, two sets of brothers played for the Bulldogs:  the Hughes (Garry, Grahame and Mark) and the Mortimers (Steve, Peter and Chris). All six played in the grand finals in 1979 and 1980. Peter Mortimer’s son, Daniel, currently plays for the Sydney Roosters, and he has the most amazing blue eyes!
• Women also play rugby league.  An Australian Women’s Rugby League was formed in 1993. At the international level, teams play for the Women’s Rugby League World Cup. The Australian side are known as the Jillaroos. In July this year,  the Jillaroos won the World Cup after defeating New Zealand and ending the Kiwis’ thirteen year winning streak.
• Like all of the other big male-dominated sports, professional rugby league has also been plagued with scandals: sex scandals, rape allegations, racism, betting scandals, doping scandals, salary cap breaches, and the absolutely appalling behaviour of some of its players.
• In the 1990s, television had a big impact on rugby league when Rupert Murdoch and his News Corporation entered the picture and came up against James Packer and his mob. Both Murdoch and Packer sought exclusive tv broadcasting rights for rugby league. What resulted was a war, with long and costly legal battles, and a second rugby league competition called Super League in 1997.  Eventually a truce was settled, and the National Rugby League (NRL) was formed.
• The Dally M Medal is awarded every year to the best and fairest player over the entire NRL season. It is named after rugby league great, Dally Messenger, who joined the first rugby league competition in 1908.  Ben Barba of the Bulldogs was the 2012 Dally M Medal winner.
• In 1995, Manly Sea Eagles’ player, Ian Roberts, was the first high profile Australian sports person and the first rugby footballer in the world to come out as gay.
• In a 1974 rugby league match, the Man of the Match received a pair of jeans as his prize.
• The first televised rugby league match in Australia was in 1961 (Balmain Vs Norths).
• Jennifer Hawkins was a Newcastle Knights’ cheerleader before she became Miss Universe in 2004.
• Tina Turner, the Hoodoo Gurus, Bon Jovi and Jessica Mauboy have all been used to market the NRL to the public.

And finally, here are some facts about the Sydney Roosters, courtesy of my Roosters-loving friend Fiona, that you should know if you ever find yourself in conversation with one of their fans-and you just might because the Roosters are one of the favourites to win this year’s competition!

1.The Roosters played South Sydney in the inaugural grand final in 1908. Now, one hundred and five years later, they are the both the favourites to compete in the 2013 grand final.

2. The Roosters are the only team to have ever played in every single season of the elite rugby league competition.

3. Known as the ‘glamour club’ or the ‘latte sippers’, the Roosters are a club many choose to dislike. Like Collingwood in the AFL.

4. The Roosters have a fierce rivalry with South Sydney.

5. Fiona’s favourite player at the moment is Mitchell Pearce. He is skilled, fit, determined, and focussed on his game. And he’s very easy on the eye too. Girls, check out his muscles!

6. Should the Roosters’ win on grand final day, make sure you sing this song: “Here come the Roosters, the best you’ve ever seen. The red, white and bluesters…The Eastern Suburbs team!”

The NRL grand final takes place on Sunday, October 6, at ANZ Stadium, Sydney Olympic Park.

Acknowledgements: I am indebted to Tony Squire’s ‘Cracking the Footy Codes’ (A.K.A Publishing, 2009), Wikipedia, my Raiders-mad husband, and Fiona Roy for my rugby league knowledge beyond Cooper Cronk and Daniel Mortimer’s fine eyes.

Next time: A Girl’s Very Basic Guide to American Football/Gridiron (NFL)