Australian National Sporting Team Nicknames Quiz

Answer:

For a country that prides itself on giving nicknames, Australia got off to a slow start. The Wallabies is the oldest Australian national sporting team nickname and was adopted for the rugby union European tour in 1908. The British press had already christened the New Zealand team as the All-Blacks in 1905 and the 1906 South African tourists had called themselves the "Springboks".

In the same year, the Australian rugby league team arrived in Great Britain for a tour. They had a live kangaroo as a mascot and so it was fairly obvious they were nicknamed "Kangaroos".

The equivalent national women's teams formed much later but continued the link with marsupials. The Australian Women's Rugby Union team became the Wallaroos (not a portmanteau word combining 'kangaroo' and 'wallaby', a wallaroo is a marsupial in its own right - a kangaroo-like animal with its size in-between a wallaby and a kangaroo). The Women's National Rugby League team became the Jillaroos (a Jillaroo is a woman training on a cattle or sheep station in Australia - the male equivalent is a Jackaroo).

The Australian Men's National Basketball Team continued the theme and became the Boomers (male kangaroos) but the Women's National team broke with tradition and became the Opals. The Australia men's national wheelchair basketball team are the Rollers and the Women's equivalent, is the Gliders. Perhaps continuing the gemstone theme of the similar sport of netball, the women's team is called the Diamonds.

Field hockey (called 'hockey' in Australia) is popular and both men's and women's teams have been world champions. The men's team is called the Kookaburras after Australia's distinctive kingfisher, and the women's team is called the Hockeyroos.

Perhaps the most imaginative distinctly Australian team nickname goes to the Australian women's soccer team who call themselves the Matildas, after the uniquely Australian song "Waltzing Matilda". The men's team is called the Socceroos.

The Australian Swim Team is called the Dolphins (both sexes) for the Olympics, Paralympics, and World Championships, while the national cycling team are called the Cyclones when competing at
the World Championships or World Cup.

Folklore tells us that Drop Bears are carnivorous over-sized koalas that attack unsuspecting people (particularly tourists) by dropping out of trees onto the victims' heads. Diligent Australians will always warn tourists of such dangers but tourists are sceptical. Quidditch is quite possibly the only sport that had its origins in fiction ("Harry Potter" series). It therefore seems appropriate that the Australian national quidditch team is known as the Drop Bears. In 2016 the Australian Drop Bears won the Quidditch World Cup defeating the previously never-defeated US National Team, thereby creating an upset to rival the Australians winning the America's Cup in 1983. In 2022 the sport was renamed quadball but the Drop Bears name remained.

For interest, the national orienteering team are called the Boomerangs (they always come back - clever!) and the Australian Touch Football Team is the Emus (mixed sexes game). The Australian Quizzing Team is the Quokkas named after the very cute Australian marsupial.

From the non-national Australian sporting teams:
Rabbitohs is the nickname of the South Sydney Rugby League Club. A rabbitoh was a hawker who caught and skinned rabbits and then earned money by selling their meat. They were prevalent during the depression when money was scarce and rabbits were not, Walking around the neighbourhood, they would shout "rabbit-oh!" to raise attention. South Sydney is proud of its working-class roots and has always had the Rabbitohs as its nickname.

The Collingwood Magpies are a Melbourne team that competes in the Australian Football League. In 2023, they won their 16th AFL/VFL premiership. They play in black and white striped uniforms reflecting the colouring of the bird after which they are named. (Fun Fact: most Australians are not scared of its venomous snakes and spiders, lethal jellyfish, saltwater crocodiles and sharks but they are afraid of magpies - in nesting seasons, magpies will swoop down behind an unsuspecting person and inflict a wound on the back of the head).

The Perth Scorchers is an Australian Twenty20 cricket team in the national Big Bash League (BBL). When the Scorchers won their fifth title in 2023, they were the most successful BBL team, winning five championships and being runners-up on three occasions from the 12 seasons the competition had been played.

Brisbane sporting teams favour alliteration for their team nicknames (eg Brisbane Broncos is the National Rugby League team) So it was an easy decision to name the Brisbane team in the National Basketball the Brisbane Bullets. The state cricket team is known as the Bulls, but are actually the Queensland Bulls as they represent the whole state and are only based in Brisbane.

The Brisbane Roar is the Brisbane soccer team that competes in the national A-League competition. Known as the Brisbane Lions in a local competition, they needed to come to an arrangement when the Brisbane Bears (the Brisbane team in the national Australian Football League, which became the Brisbane Lions when they merged with the Fitzroy Lions in 1996). The Soccer team became the Queensland Lions and then entered the newly formed A-League in 2004 as the Queensland Roar but became the Brisbane Roar when other Queensland teams, the Gold Coast United and the North Queensland Fury joined the competition.

Perhaps the most unique nickname in Australian sport goes to the Tasmanian JackJumpers, an expansion club that joined the National Basketball League in 2021. A jack jumper (Myrmecia pilosula) is a species of large venomous ant, found mainly in Tasmania, that grips its prey with its jaws and stings with its tail. It can cause anaphylactic reactions in humans.

Australian sporting teams have arguably the most unique nicknames in the world today.