MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – As we watched the final seconds of the NY Gridiron Giants beating their counterparts from San Francisco – a team named for miners – the game and the players that made an impact flashed before our eyes. That’s when the fantastic realization that Rugby – or Footy in this case – and the American version of football had become one once again; you’ll recall that American football came from Rugby. How so, you ask? Well, quite simply, actually.
The punter for the NY team is an Aussie Rules player, who was as much a weapon with his deft precise kicking in the horrific conditions, that he kept the home squad from generating any consistent threat – constantly starting with poor field position. And, more importantly, he handled a bad “snap” under tremendous pressure and placed the ball with the delicacy of a surgeon so that the kicker – they have two for some reason – could knock it through the posts for the winning score… Just brilliant. Rugby, or at least it’s AFL brother, was at last front and center on the 2nd most grand stage in America’s NFL!
But then we found out that Steve Weatherford wasn’t Ben Graham of the Geelong Football Club. We had the wrong man and the wrong story. But still, Ben Graham’s story is a good one! And you can see the long version of it by clicking THIS.
The abridged version is that Ben Graham is the only man to captain a NFL team and an AFL team! That’s correct. He went out as a captain for the NY Jets – who apparently are better than the Giants but don’t have their own stadium – in the gridiron and for Geelong in the footy. He’s also the only man to ever be in both of those sports’ respective championships – the 1995 AFL Grand Final and Super Bowl XLIII as a member of the Arizona Cardinals.
So, see? Our madness has a method!
Tune in tomorrow for more madness with England star Matthew Drew Turner and his madcap pursuit of the HSBC Sevens Series Title!
Here’s an added bonus, our mates from MeetTheMatts.com went down to cover the footy for us…
P.s… We’re certain that Steve Weatherford would make a fine rugby or footy player!
