A few weeks ago I wrote about famous Tasmanians, and a significant number were athletes. However, they were cricketers and a world champion axeman, sports I wasn’t too familiar with or expecting. So, I’ve decided to find out more about Tasmanian sports.
Apparently, the most popular sports to watch are cricket and Australian rules football, while the most popular sports to play are Association football for men and swimming for women. Tasmanians also participate in netball, basketball, soccer, Gaelic football, rugby, golf, hockey, car racing, water skiing, water polo, skiing, ice hockey, sailing, tennis, and real tennis. Since I didn’t know there was a fake tennis, I set out to establish the difference, and to learn more about the other sports I didn’t know.
In the Australian Big Bash cricket league, all games are of the Twenty20 format, a shorter version to 20 overs. This typically limits game play to just 3 hours, more in line with modern sports fan expectations and the needs of television. The men’s league has existed since 2011 (when it replaced the previous league), and the women’s league is currently being established for the upcoming season!
Australian rules football seems to be a variant of rugby, with the most significant difference being the layout of the field and that the ball must be punched to pass, rather than the typical rugby throw. Despite Tasmania being the second place to play the game after neighboring rival Victoria, currently no Tasmanian team competes at the highest level.
Gaelic football combines elements of Australian rules football (punch passing and traveling), basketball (dribbling), and soccer (other dribbling) to create a frenetic whirlwind of awesomeness. Seriously if I had known this was a sport growing up I probably wouldn’t have played anything else.
Last but not least, real tennis, also known as court tennis and royal tennis, is the forefather of the game we call tennis. While real tennis, like modern tennis, is played with a racket and ball and has largely similar scoring, it is played indoors in a vast asymmetric room with very specific dimensions, wall angles, and openings at particular intervals.
Sadly, despite the fame of champion Axeman David Foster, axing was not listed as a popular Tasmanian sport.
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