Australian rules football. Isn’t that just rugby by another name? According to Wayne Kraska, coach of the Rome Redbacks, the answer is a decided “NO!” He describes it as far more fun and exciting than rugby. “Yes, it has running,” he says. “Yes, it has kicking. Yes, it has bodies crashing into each other, without pads. But that still doesn’t make it rugby.”
It’s Australian rules football, also referred to as Aussie rules football or footy. It is the biggest sport in Australia, it has the fourth largest attendance of all major domestic sports in the world, and the playing field is larger than that of any other sport.
From Down Under to Northwest Georgia
The Australian Rules Football Club has made its way to Rome, Georgia, as the Rome Redbacks. This happened thanks to the passion and drive of Coach Wayne Kraska, who moved to the United States from Australia about twenty years ago. “Because of the Australian Consulate in Atlanta,” Kraska says, “Aussies were always coming to or through Atlanta.”
In America, he started with an Atlanta club, the Kookaburras, that had been established in the 1990s and was a part of a fifteen-team league that spanned the country. He was with them for eighteen years. “Because of the consulate, it wasn’t hard to find Australians to play,” Kraska says, “and Americans joined in, too, so we were able to have a club.”
About five years ago, Kraska moved to Rome. “During my first couple of years here, I was still a part of the Kookaburras,” he says, “but I decided to leave that and start a club here in Rome.” He began recruiting players and founded the Rome Redbacks. The team was named after the notorious redback spider, also known as the Australian black widow, a venomous spider found in Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.