Australian Football (AFL) Grand Final Watch Party

The AFL Grand Final is the biggest day on the Australian sporting calendar. It’s Saturday afternoon at the MCG, which makes it Friday night here, so we’re staying open late and putting it on every screen.

Normal Friday hours up to then. Free entry, no booking, everyone welcome.

The night

• 9:30pm: pre-game coverage from Melbourne
• 10:30pm: first bounce
• 11:05pm: quarter time, first squares draw
• 11:35pm: half time, second draw. It’s a long break, about 25 minutes.
• 12:35am: three quarter time, third draw
• 1:10am: final siren, fourth draw
• 1:45am: medal, cup, and the winning team’s song

Everything after the bounce is approximate. The clock stops a lot.

Never seen a game

Most people here won’t have. It’s 18 a side on a cricket oval, with no offside, no pads, no forward pass and almost no stopping. Players punch the ball to each other and take catches over each other’s shoulders at full speed.

We’ll have a cheatsheet on the bar: the rules in 90 seconds, both teams, and what to watch for. It takes about a quarter to work out what’s going on. By half time you’ll have picked a side.

Squares

Free to play, and you don’t need to know anything about the game.

Write your name in an empty square on the grid. Once the grid fills up, each square gets two numbers, one for each team. At every break we take the last digit of each team’s score and find the square where those two numbers meet. Whoever’s name is in it wins.

We draw four times across the night, so turning up late doesn’t count you out.

On the bar

Australian snacks and ginger beer alongside the usual taps. Commentary up loud, and we stay on the feed right through to the presentations.

Wear your club colours if you’ve got them.

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