An Untraditional North American Rivalry
If you were fortunate enough to watch the AFL game, between the Sydney Swans and St Kilda over the weekend, you were treated to a piece of history.
History maybe (see below), but fortunate? Nah, it was a crappy game, not just because St. Kilda lost and lost big, but because it was ugly. The Saints were completely out-classed by the Swans who made lots and lots of mistakes of their own. To their credit, Sydney had more goals (20 goals, 15 behinds: 135)than St. Kilda had scoring shots (4 goals, 14 behinds: 38). (Goal = 6 points; behind = 1 point)
Mike Pyke is now what could be termed as a veteran of the AFL landscape. The 31 year old has been in the system since 2009 and is a 107-game premiership player with the Sydney Swans.
He migrated to the game of Australian Rules football relatively late in his professional sporting career, coming from a rugby background in Canada, where he represented his country 20 times before injury saw him have to look to other sporting horizons.
Facing Pyke, on the other side of the ruck contest on Sunday, was a tall, lanky American who used to play basketball until he decided he wanted to spread his wings and try something a bit different in professional sport.
