Playing from the sidelines 

You've *GOT* to add a video of the bit from the beginning of the show where everyone talks about the red-shirts shenanigan. It's *hilarious.*

This episode feels like it's from a parallel universe where everyone's default shirt colours are just red and it's never questioned once...

Tom I love the new Lateral uniforms that you’re making everyone wear

I can't believe all 3 guests were just Tom Scott on this episode

The guests with red-shirts turning their webcams on for a reaction while Tom's internally contemplating his life choices when the realization hits him.

Basically Australian Rules Football was invented as a way to keep cricketers fit while outside the cricket season using the cricket ground and it's main parent in terms of rules & gameplay is actually Gaelic Football

Lmao at everyone's red shirt

Aussie here! The penalty of setting the score back to zero, especially late in the game is even bigger than at forst thought, as scores in Aussie Rules Football can reach 100 (or more) with some frequency.

Love how Tom Scott mentioned Jon Bois during a question about a story that SecretBase (formerly SBNation) has already covered. You love to see it.

I love that Tom is a Bois Boy. His sport documentaries transcend enjoyment of the sports. They're just great stories about interesting people playing games.

It’s funny you mention Jon Bois - I first heard this anecdote from a different SB Nation show, Weird Rules

Ok, add Jon Bois to the growing list of people I would love to see on here.

Australian football rules: In the last quarter, a teammate is allowed to run into the stands and perform a thunder from down under routine. The amount of dollars they are tipped in their Budgies gets added to the clock with a 15 minute maximum. Classic Australian past time.

It's a red herring! Focus Soldier!

I (quietly) wooed when Bois was mentioned. I genuinely took hours out of my life during an exam just to read 17776. It was a 24 hour at-home exam during Covid years, admittedly. But still. I just couldn't stop reading, it hooked me so completely and I NEED to read the sequel at some point.

A brilliant video. This team are very good at working together. Get this set of guests back

I had this happen during a game I played during university. Unfortunately our captain was on the ground when he should not have been, so after the headcount was called our entire score was wiped out, and with it our chances of winning! In retrospect I should have just made a break for it.

Awesome to see the love & admiration of Mr. Bois amazing work. Scoragami is one of my favorite things. 😊

I love when this group is on. They have such a good spirit.

Not sure where else to suggest this, but I would love a couple of Lets Learn Everything and Answer in Progress crossover episodes, and of course a (episode 100?) Tech Diff special.

Spoiler Shield

To clarify the rules (as they were in the 90s through 10s, I don't know about the older rules when this happened, nor more recent although I doubt it's changed much): --- spoiler alert --- Running off into the crowd doesn't officially count - you still count as being on the field. Only players leaving through the interchange area count as leaving. The umpires (especially the goal umpires, since they have the widest view) watch the field from when a head count is called to spot anyone leaving the field, so that they can still be included in the count. If they managed to leave without anyone noticing, they might get away with it (like in this question). In a high-level game, the video footage would be checked. A head count is called by a captain or acting captain, not a coach. If either team is found to be over the allowed number of players: - the other team's captain (or acting captain) will receive a Free Kick from either the centre circle or where play was stopped, whichever is a greater penalty to the offending team. - a fifty metre penalty is then applied. - the offending team's score is reset to zero. (Yes, this is still the case, as far as I'm aware. It was certainly still the case in the late 2010s when I last umpired.) If the head count shows that both teams have the correct number of players: - the captain (or acting captain) of the team which didn't call for the head count will receive a Free Kick from either the centre circle or where play was stopped, whichever is a greater penalty to the offending team. - a fifty metre penalty is then applied. - if the umpire believes the head count was called to waste time, the captain can be reported.

Tom was SO CLOSE bringing up Jon Bois, here! 😂

Secret Base did an episode about this rule

of all the eps to wish for full video of, it's the one where the guests troll tom by dressing like him lol

Oh, my bad, I thought they weren't loading.

Why are you here? I''m here for the subtitles that read "Laughts squekily" at 6:58

Tom Scott x Secret Base collab when?

I thought the one in the red shirt was funniest.

As an Australian, who enjoys sport, this video hurts me

6:50 You missed an obvious opportunity…. Bueller… Bueller…

i don't think i ever had any interest in team sport ever before, but this sounds like such an enjoyable sport to watch

I'm Aussie, I have no idea of the answer, but my first thought is "It's Melbourne, in spring, he went to the pub and they had to hold the game while he finished a few pints" 😆

2:00 There's no official pronunciation, so I've seen people pronounce the title as either "two-hundred-twenty", "twenty-oh-twenty", or "twenty-thousand-twenty". Personally, I say it as "two-hundred-twenty".

The Join Bois name drop got me geeking

Oh my goodness the captions: _(laughs squeakily)_

The John Bois story Tom Scott is alluding to is 222-0, when Georgia Tech thoroughly obliterated Cumberland College in the greatest blowout game of football that was ever played.

I agree with the red shirt

I’m expecting one of them will eventually show up with a Tom Scott VTuber avatar.

I wanna watch the hypothetical Jon Bois video on this story. It would be a 3 hour banger for sure

This is yet another one that I knew instantly because of SBNation.

Look It's Tom Scott, Tom Scott, To Scott, and Tom Scott

Before I realized it was rugby, and still thought it was football (soccer) rules, I thought it was a switch-in situation, where a player was ready to be swapped in to help score a goal, but the player he was trading in was far away from the actual swapping area - and my guess was that maybe Australia hadn't specified that players need to swap in a specific location, so he just took off to the nearest exit, let the other player in, and they scored a goal.

The Tom Scott cosplay 🤩😘

Was there a uniform for this episode or something?

First guess: did someone dare him?

Why was it just 4x tom scott today? Why no guests?

My first thought was too many players, cause that's a notable rules violation that's happened a few times in NFL games. First time I got the answer without any clues/guesses.

I presume there's a 'too many players on the field' penalty in Aussie Rules, could maybe that extend to the number of players on the sideline as well?

4:07 Tom you're going to cop some backlash from Aussie rules fans for this (including me), that's Rugby Union's lineout. The Aussie rules one are better (a specky), the player jumps over someone else's back (preferably an opponent), uses it as leverage to reach higher and catch the ball!

Ah, it's all that Vegemite - makes 'em Krafty . . . : )

Red shirts!

Initial thoughts: I won't even try to first guess this one. But I will remark on the Lateral things going on in this question. The year could [be] only the year of the rules. "Australian" may refer, once again, only to the rules. The actual match could well have been in Cuba in 2020, or whatever [else]. Now the guess: maybe he was using himself as a reference point, a target, a guide, giving important information back to the team by being up and above in the stands. Could be so to provide info to a newer team playing by old rules (some markers/lines/layout missing or not the same). Could also be a kind of loophole that those old rules allowed; (Sorry, I'm not into football) like no "kickoff/throw" advantage on penalty if the opposing team is one player down? In any case, that name is great, Dare "challenge" the Norm! The Norm Darer!

I'm never quite certain when talking 'football' what game is being played. Gridiron? FIFA? Some version of rugby? Not that I understand any of them, but the layer of confusion stack deep.

I'm here just to see the red shirts 😂

Got this one from the start, it is a strange rule.

Ella is so lovely 😅

Are your guests cosplaying Tom Scott?

Aussie Rules football is closer to Gaelic Football than it is to Rugby.

He did it on a dare.

I was gonna ask if he was DARED to do it?

Tom Scott watches/reads Jon Bois? Didn't think he would be enough into sports for that.

After all the rules described in this episode alone, Aussie rules football sounds like blernsball from Futurama.

@jonbois is required to be a part of this in the future. There is no alternative.

He calmed down the crowd and prevented a match cancelation?

Redshirts... oh no

a knife fight has more understandable rules than Australian rules football.

Jon Bois can spend 90 minutes on the current crisis of the shortage of people named "Bob" in professional sports. The guy is a genius.

Just here to watch everyone in red shirt

Why did they edit all the shirts to look red?

They switched to playing Tommyball, after all, this is Australia.

Laserpointers in 1975?

I believe the penalty is still the same, offending team reset to zero. Oh and Aussie Rules is much closer to Gaelic or International Rules Football (not soccer) rather than rugby, but using a much larger rugby shaped ball rather than round like Gaelic.

Too many players? An Alabama football player famously got off the bench and tackled a Rice player to prevent his scoring a touchdown in the Cotton Bowl in 1954. The Alabama player's famous quip? I was “just too full of Alabama”. PS The officials awarded Rice the touchdown because even when Alabama is playing only 11 players are allowed on the field at one time.

I'm sure it's something far more interesting than this, but my first thought is there were too many players on the field.

So he quit playing football and started playing hide and seek?

I'm Australian, but more of an NRL fan than AFL. First guess is: can you take a mark even if the ball goes out of bounds?

Where's the comments?

I found it quite disrespectful how Tom talked over the top of Caroline there.

You should have added -Scott on everyone’s last names on this one

"I only meant to offend Americans" but you already offended us by the time you compared it to Rugby. I thought you were about to say Gaelic football, but no. I'm pulling a suss face when saying it got its DNA from Rugby (Union? coz most of the country plays Rugby League) and especially gridiron, which I'm pretty sure had zero influence on Australia … but what would I know, I'm not into sport at all and only know enough to know it's bizarre down under. The only "football" I follow is FIFA so I can take a 3.9 year break every 4 years.

Wrong football in the thumbnail.

The combination of Caroline’s headphones and chair make her look so much like an old school nun.