The Galahs

This movie is a documentary about Australian football. Now before you switch off, just read this synopsis. You no doubt feel the same way about this topic as most Australians do when we see movies about American football, or soccer, for that matter. Imagine that your super bowl champions (if you're American) visit England to play the English champions at soccer, or that the Premier League soccer champions (if you're British or European) visit the USA to play the champions of their American football game. An impossible quest, surely. But it happened here, and the Australians defeated the Irish champions. A composite Australian Rules Football team visited Ireland to play their Gaelic football champions, being completely ignorant of that game. Some rules were modified to accommodate both sides, the most important of which was retaining a round ball (Australian football uses an oval ball) and retaining the scoring posts and rules used in Ireland. Just think how hard it is to win a national title in any country if you are a team competing for that title, then imagine a team from overseas that, having never played the game before, defeats those national champions. An amazing story. Incidentally, the title (The Galahs) was the name chosen by this visiting team and is the name of a brightly-coloured Australian cockatoo.

This movie is a documentary about Australian football. Now before you switch off, just read this synopsis. You no doubt feel the same way about this topic as most Australians do when we see movies about American football, or soccer, for that matter. Imagine that your super bowl champions (if you're American) visit England to play the English champions at soccer, or that the Premier League soccer champions (if you're British or European) visit the USA to play the champions of their American football game. An impossible quest, surely. But it happened here, and the Australians defeated the Irish champions. A composite Australian Rules Football team visited Ireland to play their Gaelic football champions, being completely ignorant of that game. Some rules were modified to accommodate both sides, the most important of which was retaining a round ball (Australian football uses an oval ball) and retaining the scoring posts and rules used in Ireland. Just think how hard it is to win a national title in any country if you are a team competing for that title, then imagine a team from overseas that, having never played the game before, defeats those national champions. An amazing story. Incidentally, the title (The Galahs) was the name chosen by this visiting team and is the name of a brightly-coloured Australian cockatoo.