Australian Rules Football
Australian rules football was first played in 2003, when the Tonga Australian Football Association was founded. A school competition has been played yearly since then, including a tour to Samoa. A Tongan team competed at the 2004 Australian Football Multicultural Cup.
The senior men's representative team is known as the Black Marlins, and hosted Australian amateur team the Fitzroy Reds in late 2006.
Although the Black Marlins could not raise the money required to send a team to the 2008 Australian Football International Cup, but a Tongan-Australian side did participate in the multicultural division of the competition against multicultural sides from Asia and Africa.
Read more about this topic: Sport In Tonga
Famous quotes containing the words australian, rules and/or football:
“Beyond the horizon, or even the knowledge, of the cities along the coast, a great, creative impulse is at work—the only thing, after all, that gives this continent meaning and a guarantee of the future. Every Australian ought to climb up here, once in a way, and glimpse the various, manifold life of which he is a part.”
—Vance Palmer (1885–1959)
“This was Pharaoh, direct descendent of our deity Amon, god of the sun, who rules the heavens as Pharaoh rules the earth. Again, he brought treasure, gold, and precious jewels taken from our enemies. For to Pharaoh riches were power and power was to be desired. And also again he brought many captives. For is it not by slaves that one becomes even richer and then has even more power?”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“In this dream that dogs me I am part
Of a silent crowd walking under a wall,
Leaving a football match, perhaps, or a pit,
All moving the same way.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)