By Spiro Zavos
February 28th 2008 @ 6:58am
21st century football wars: and the winner is …
The announcement by the AFL that it is going to invade the western suburbs of Sydney, the heartland of rugby league, has reignited the always simmering football wars.
The period between the 1880s and the end of the First World War in 1918 could be described as ‘the era of the football wars’ in Australia.
This initial series of conflicts for the hearts, minds and bodies of Australian males was a contest to become the national winter sport. The first battles were between what has become known as Australian Rules and rugby union.
In 1883, Australian Rules (then known as Victorian Football) moved outside Victoria and seeds of the game were planted in Brisbane. A year earlier, however, VFL authorities had rejected a plea to subsidise VFL players living in Brisbane to come down to Sydney to play VFL football against a team of Sydneysiders. A game of rugby union was played instead, with a number of the Queenslanders needing to have the laws of rugby explained to them.
The venture was so successful a return match in Brisbane was arranged, and this was the start of the NSW-Queensland rivalry – the Blues against the Reds – which has has lasted through to Super 14 rugby. It is one of the longest state (or provincial) rugby rivalries in the history of the code.
Touring has always been an essential part of the rugby ethic. Dr Arnold at Rugby School, where the game was created in the 1840s, used to go to Europe at the end of every school term. This touring ethic was picked up by rugby players, even in Australia. In 1882, following their tour to Brisbane, the NSW players embarked on the first rugby tour of New Zealand by an overseas team. A year or so later, an Auckland team toured NSW.
The touring ethic of rugby became so entrenched in NZ and Australia that in 1904 a team from the famous Maori College, Te Aute, came to Sydney. The Te Aute style of vigorous, skillful, fast and expansive play was picked up by St Joseph’s College, Hunters Hill, after their match against the unbeaten New Zealanders.
While rugby was entrenching itself in NSW and Queensland, the VFL was trying to convince rugby authorities in New Zealand, Australia and in the UK that the IRB should convert from rugby to what they insisted was the more skillful ‘Victorian science’ game. For a time the VFL started to call its game, ‘Australasian Football.’ But when the overtures to New Zealand were rejected, even in flat Christchurch where the Victorian game was quite popular, the VFL began to call its game ‘Australian Rules football.’
In a fascinating article in the SMH, the sports historian Sean Fagan points out that an Australian Rules 11-club competition was established in Sydney in 1903. One of the backers of the competition was the great cricketer Victor Trumper. The competition was kicked off by a match between Fitzroy and Collingwood. The crowd at the SCG was 26,000. A few weeks later Australia played New Zealand for the first time at the SCG in front of 30,000 people.
Sean Fagan argues that Australian Rules gained a significant hold in Sydney by 1905 with as many youngsters playing the Victorian game as there were playing rugby. Two of Dally Messenger’s younger brothers were Australian Rules players, and, according to Fagan, Dally Messenger himself played for Easts in 1905.
Sydney, and with it NSW and Queensland, was saved for the rugby code (but rugby league rather than rugby union), according to Fagan, by ‘the advent of professional rugby league.’ Because league was professional, it generated the cash to pay footballers, who might otherwise have defected to Australian Rules. League entrenched its popularity as the dominant football code in NSW and Queensland during the First World War when rugby union shut down its grade competitions. The Queensland Rugby Union actually went out of existence until 1929.
By 1919 the football wars had reached a stalemate. NSW and Queensland were predominantly rugby league states, with rugby union having a significant hold with the middle and upper middle classes, a passion generated in the main because rugby union was the football code of choice since the 1890s of the GPS colleges.
There was what sports historians called a Barassi Line protecting the rest of Australia, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania, for Australian Rules.
This Barassi Line, with Australian Rules ruling to the south and west and the rugby codes ruling along the eastern seaboard, was as static as the line of trenches across Europe in the First World War up to the 1980s.
The 1980s onwards saw breakthroughs in the football wars on both sides of the Barassi Line. The AFL established the Swans in Sydney and the Lions in Brisbane. The NRL established teams (unsuccessfully) in Perth and Adelaide, and successfully in Melbourne with the Storm. Rugby union became a professional sport in 1996. Super Rugby was set up and rugby tests were played in front of huge crowds at the spiritual home of Australian Rules, the MCG.
Huge televisions receipts, from free-to-air television (for AFL and rugby league) and from Pay TV (for rugby union and football with its A-League) commercialised the sports, and gave them the revenue to promote their codes in what had hitherto been enemy territory.
Now flush with money and with the ambitions of world domination retained from the 1880s, the AFL has launched a major offensive into the western suburbs of Sydney, the heartland of rugby league. The AFL has announced that it wants to have a second Sydney side, playing out of the western suburbs, as soon as possible.
This decision by the AFL has restarted the football wars in earnest. The rugby league establishment has enjoined the battle. We’ve had Sean Fagan’s historical article in the SMH insisting ‘hold hard, fellow rugby-ites (of either brand) and footballers of the round-ball kind, we’ve heard all this hot air before.’
Roy Masters, the great writer on rugby league, and a former coach of the famous St George club, is adamant that AFL is desperate to break into ‘larger media markets’ in Australia and around the world but that ‘west Sydney may prove the Rubicon the AFL will never cross.’
In Melbourne, the biggest-selling daily newspaper in Australia, the Herald-Sun, is gung-ho in its support of the AFL invasion of the hostile territory of west Sydney. But in Sydney, the Daily Telegraph (also a News Ltd newspaper), the voice of rugby league (its advertisement for an assistant sports editor specifically mentioned a knowledge of rugby league as a requirement) has taken up the fight for its code.
This is the context to the opening paragraph of a report of a Swans-Port Adelaide trial match: ‘The AFL’s plan to take over western Sydney by 2012 received a healthy reality check after a small crowd turned up to the Swans’ pre-season game … at the same time across town, the pre-season match between the Roosters and the West Tigers at the SFS attracted a crowd of 15,197.’ Ouch!
The football wars in Australia have been going on for about 120 years. It’s impossible to predict when they might end. I think it’s fair to argue, though, that it is most unlikely that any one code will wipe out all the other codes. My guess is that in time (but don’t ask me when) football/soccer will displace AFL as Australia’s major national football code.
Football already has a national coverage: it has huge numbers of players; it has a national league that has the potential to grow much bigger; it has a huge market in Asia that its clubs and national side, the Socceroos, can play into; it has the Football World Cup tournament and the Olympics to energise the local game every two years.
Rugby union also, although a much smaller level in Australia and around the world, is getting the same national reach, together with its vibrant international footprint. The Investec Super 14 is attractive to an up-market finance/investment company because it is played in Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, and watched with great interest in the UK. Rugby’s World Cup tournament, held every four years, is the biggest sporting event in the year it is held.
The two other combatants in the football wars, the AFL and NRL, have deeply entrenched positions within their heartlands. But no amount of posturing, especially by the AFL, can disguise the fact that their international presence is relatively small.
If football in world terms is Coca-Cola, then rugby union is Pepsi Cola. Using the same analogy, AFL and NRL are Bundaberg ginger beer, a terrific local brand but with limited overseas appeal. If this analogy is correct, the winner of the Australian 21st century football wars will be …
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The man said | February 28th 2008 @ 5:27am | Report comment
Spiro,
Nothing I like better winding down after a title fight than a nice cold can of Shelley’s ginger beer.
The fact that can may be distributed to less, but more descerning countries (or states) doesn’t change my enjoyment. It still tastes bloody good to me.
The rest of the world (like WA) just needs to try it, or have Russell Crowe shove a can down their throats.
All this talk about cans has me thinking about breaking my self imposed pre fight absenance.
Peace out brother
sheek said | February 28th 2008 @ 9:08am | Report comment
Spiro,
Terrific article. As were those by Sean Fagan & Roy Masters in the SMH. Several years ago, 2 books came out within a month or two of each other.
The first was by Sean Fagan, titled ‘The Rugby Rebellion’, which is a fascinating & deeply researched book on how rugby league broke away from rugby union around 1907-09.
The second was by John Mulford, titled ‘Guardians Of the Game’, which is another deeply researched & well written history of NSW rugby.
However, I felt that while Fagan was able to back his stories/theories constantly with hard facts, Mulford, former ARU archives librarian, was inclined to be too political, towing the tired, old mantras of rugby union’s superior place in the sun over rugby league.
Anyway, well done Spiro. I myself have no idea where this will all end, except this – for any code to believe they “own” a particular territory will be their first fatal mistake. This is a “fluid” war of the football codes!
Millster said | February 28th 2008 @ 9:55am | Report comment
Spiro – with an article like that you should be renamed “the Toreador”. I am waiting with baited breath for the inevitable riposte from Michael C and the other AFL-ites who frequent this site!
My one short comment is that it strikes me as silly that the competition between the 4 codes assumes the same optimum outcome of outright market dominance. A war is only a war if you are trying to conquer the same battleground, and that doesn’t necessarily have to be the only way that the cross-code rivalry plays out. I don’t think it’s a bad position at all to be a niche / foil to major global brands. Plenty of success has been achieved by carving out an idiosyncratic little corner of the market. AFL and League should celebrate being fantastic, enjoyable ‘little’ games that add their own flavour to the culture of Australia. In keeping, my own passion is football and that’s what I predominantly attend. But when overseas family or friends come and visit, it’s off to the AFL that we go.
sheek said | February 28th 2008 @ 10:04am | Report comment
Millster,
There was a time not so long ago, late 90s, when I resented the fact there were 4 football codes in Australia.
But I saw the light – I can appreciate all 4 codes. I think they can all prosper, but they all have to work hard on their markets. The beneficiaries (hopefully) will be us fans.
Our mantra ought to be: “entertain us, or we’ll go elsewhere”. Sorry, there’s that ‘E’ word being applied to sport, again……….
Midfielder said | February 28th 2008 @ 10:04am | Report comment
Millster
Maybe MC reply may be to much for the server with this much open for discussion.
My simple comment is enjoy your sport as it is not a war and those that declare normally get hurt to, unless total victory which cannot see happening.
The war that will be interesting but we will not see will be between the old hard heads in sports media departments, coming up against the accountants to justify the inches they currently provide the AFL & NRL
Steve said | February 28th 2008 @ 11:46am | Report comment
Spiro,
Well done with the article. It must be extermely difficult to summarise the long and complex origins of the 4 games in NSW and QLD in the limited column space.
I can add that in 1877 and probably earlier, the Waratah Football Club in Redfern,Sydney and other clubs, played both rugby and what they called, the Victorian Rules(of rugby) . I call it Vic Rules for short,( the precursor of the AFL). It wasnt the same Waratah organisation as we know today, just a club with the same name.
The Waratahs actually preferred Vic rules and invited the Carlton Football Club from Melb to play 2 games in Sydney, at the now built over Albert ground in Redfern. Apparently, this was the first time a Melbourne club had played in Sydney.
The first match was played on Sat 23/6/1877 under rugby rules and was won by the Waratahs 2 goals to nil. The second match was played on Monday 25/6/1877 under Vic rules and was won by Carlton 6 goals to nil. Both matches were played before the Governor of NSW and other dignitaries.
In later years, key members of the Waratahs went on to form the fledgling “NSW Football Association” , ie Vic rules in NSW.
By the way, at the time all 3 winter sports used the term “football” in their name or organisation or in newspaper reports, which can make it difficult to research.
As a rugby man, I was disappointed to discover that my great grandfather was actively involved in the setting up of Vic rules in NSW but I have nonthe less, researched this subject at length.
It seems that Vic Rules was much more popular in Sydney than rugby or Association Football(soccer) in the late 1870s and mid 1880’s judging by the amount of column space devoted to it in the SMH and other Sydney papers of the time.
On another point, the situation with the Queensland Rugby Union after WW1 is controversial.
When war was declared in 1914, the NSWRU and the QRU both quickly shut down the game to allow all able bodied men to freely enlist to fight for King and country.
The NSW and Queensland rugby leagues did not do the same. They played on during the war enjoying a virtual monopoly and with their players safely protected from the Kaiser. In fact the NSWRL was so concerned that their players might be forced to serve in the army if the conscription referendum was passed that they met with the Aust Govt to apply for an exemption.
After the war, rugby resumed in NSW. But in Qld, the Queensland Rugby League had taken over all the ground leases of the QRU depriving rugby of anywhere to play.
Cheers
Westy said | February 28th 2008 @ 12:29pm | Report comment
Always said the Leaguies had more brains.
Chas said | February 28th 2008 @ 12:33pm | Report comment
Steve:
You write absolute unresearched rubbish when you refer to RL and World War !. Read Sean Fagen’s books and articles to extend your knowledge. Spiro, unfortunately, has used a similar stance to yours on many ANZAC Day occasions to denigrate RL. This has been corrected by many other informed writers. However, the myth prevails…….thanks to your uninformed appraisal.
Michael C said | February 28th 2008 @ 12:42pm | Report comment
Nah, I won’t overdo on this one.
I agree re. the niche thing.
I do point out though that the Melb Herald Sun HAS NOT in fact been fully supporting the AFL. The Melb Herald Sun has effectivey been promoting the anti-expansion, anti-Sydney sentiment. (being a News Ltd outlet – one wonders as to the outright independance of it’s positioning). And the notion of a wide front full scale ‘war’…….that’s simply the Sydney NRL media trying to build a bit of interest amongst their own folk – it allows them to do so without using ’soccer’ (the real major threat) as the public enemy number 1. It’s opportunistic – it’s smart. Wait and see on the pay off – there’s certainly a big push to increase club memberships on the back of the centenary – IMO there’s a bit of NRL credibility riding on this year. At any rate, I’ve noted the Sydney media haven’t really picked up on the comments of Denis Fitzgerald (who I rate), who, reckons, it’s not really a big deal. There’s already a fair grass roots AFL presence, and, given that the AFL have a national draft, it isn’t required to rape and pillage the local suburbs of talent and outbid rival codes for individual kids (well, not for a whole squad – because, all sports are doing just that all the time any way, signing up 12 year olds…..)
Niche – I think I’ve pretty well pointed out that I see the AFL as never having more than a reasonable niche in NSW & QLD. The AFL has never sought total warfare (I’m talking the current institution, I don’t care for the thoughts of one particular fellow quoted by Fagan from 1880). Certain individuals such as Ron Barassi may state their vision, or dream or whatever – but, have never been recognised as reflecting official policiy or position. Who knows.
I still believe that the phoney war at the moment is the uneasy tension existing between the 2 rugby codes, and the uneasy tension between Rugby League and Soccer. They’re are the more likely to explode – they are the Pakistan/India powder kegs – simply, because they all share NSW and QLD as their largest footprint power bases. The relative core strength increase for any one does by virtue weaken at least one of the other.
btw – is it perhaps ironic to suggest that the greatest impetus for the formation of Rugby League in Sydney was in fact the ’smell the fear’ of the piddling Victorian game. Or, was it what was happening in New Zealand and England – ah well, either way, Aust Footy played a role to help Sydney folk get their act together.
Steve said | February 28th 2008 @ 1:16pm | Report comment
Chas,
Oops! I seem to have touched a sore point!
As I said in my piece I have researched the early years at length. In fact I’ve been doing it for about 10 years now on and off. Its one of my hobbies. How many source documents have you studied Chas?
I have waded through Fagans books of course.
Fagan is a self professed and passionate advocate of League. He’s entitled to his opinion but just because hes passionate about Rugby League and their non-show in World War 1 doesnt make him right. He has desperately tried to put a positive spin on it. Other researchers have different and at times opposite points of view.
I know Rugby League gets touchy about this subject every time it pops up. Some of my own family were in both camps on this very issue.
I think we should agree to disagree on this issue.
Michael C said | February 28th 2008 @ 1:27pm | Report comment
Given that in Melbourne the VFL continued during WW1, and in WW2 simply shortened the seasons of 1942 and 1943 – - I might suggest that the done thing at the time was that the pro leagues continued.
I have no family history in Australia let alone the Commonwealth dating back to either war so I have no vested interest to say ‘big deal’ or ‘cowards, how dare they’ – all I can say is that I’d never stand almost 100 years hence and judge those at the time……..however, perhaps if somebody said ’sorry’…..
Is it not in general the approach that you try not to shut down the home front entirely, the ‘big league’ was good for morale etc etc. However, if that outcome was only reached at the lobbying of both parties (and any others in that boat). Again, as above, I wouldn’t judge them in retrospect knowing the outcomes.
The Boar said | February 28th 2008 @ 1:41pm | Report comment
Steve – perhaps you would care to tell us which other professional sports around the planet (outside of war zones) ceased thier competitions in WW1? The VFL didn’t stop in WW1.
By all means we can all have contrary views, but in your original post & in Spiros article we only got – as sheek so well put it – “the tired, old mantras of rugby union’s superior place in the sun over rugby league.”
Steve said | February 28th 2008 @ 2:19pm | Report comment
Michael C
You seem to be trying to put words in my mouth. I didnt use terms that you have attributed to me like…”big deal’ or ‘cowards, how dare they’ ”
My intention from the outset was to recite a simple fact – not to be judgemental. It seems that some people cant handle the truth.
The Boar
As I said to Michael C, I have set out to present a fact not to be judgemental. I didnt realise facts could be so controversial.
Chas said | February 28th 2008 @ 2:34pm | Report comment
Steve:
Why should we agree to disagree about an issue that has truth attached to it? Sean Fagen is not the only writer/researcher to have reported something different to Rugby Union spin. Like you, I am an interested hobbyist in relation to this topic and have been convinced by impartial writers on this subject. To dismiss Sean Fagen as a Rugby League apologist is to continue the myth started by Rugby Union followers during the 1920s. Sean Fagen is NOT a Rugby League follower. He is an acknowledged impartial leader in his field. To state otherwise is to continue the myth.
Michael C said | February 28th 2008 @ 2:35pm | Report comment
Steve -
NO, no —– I wasn’t trying to put words in your mouth, I was more musing about the 2 extreme positions that might be taken on passing judgement – were I to do so (let alone anything in between). I was trying to make clear why any comments I make on this issue are totally NON-JUDGEMENTAL and the reason why.
I have no position re your position or that of Chas – and, just as Rugby folk may have never had any idea that VFL was running through the wars – I have never cared either way or known about what Rugby was doing all that time ago and had no idea that there might be a perhaps murky story behind such.
I also support that you clarified that it wasn’t just 1903 that saw Victorian/Melb/Australian Football establishing a ‘beach head’. It had already done that to a lesser degree, it was more the question of the likelihood of being a professional organisation going forward. And Sydney was in a far greater state of flux in all such respects than Melbourne – as below illustrates:
“A point to remember is that, at least until the 1890s, football in Melbourne was on a much bigger scale than in Sydney. In 1881 Melbourne’s population was 282,000 and Sydney’s was 225,000, but the disparity in the popularity of football was much greater. According to Twopenny, Melbourne had eight times as many clubs as Sydney, the biggest crowds were three times the size of Sydney’s best, and about ten times as many people watched football in Melbourne as in Sydney on any given Saturday. Moreover, the sixpence charged at Melbourne grounds had helped to create a chain of well-appointed suburban grounds while in Sydney, with one exception, matches were played on unenclosed grounds such as Moore Park and the Domain, and disruptions to play were common as spectators spilled on to playing areas.”
cheers.
The Boar said | February 28th 2008 @ 2:40pm | Report comment
“Steve – “I didnt realise facts could be so controversial.” Because (in regard to WW1) all you did was offer up your opinion of those events. You can call Fagan’s piece on WW1 opinion too, but at least he backs up what he says with reasoning: http://www.rl1908.com/articles/war.htm
Steve said | February 28th 2008 @ 2:54pm | Report comment
Gentelmen , gentlemen, gentelmen,
Some people seem to be confusing, facts,opinions and judgments.
Its a fact that, with some exceptions on both sides, rugby men enlisted in WW1 while league men did not, in Sydney. Can we all agree on that?
Secondly, the Queensland situation after WW1 is very well documented. Or is that fact in dispute as well?
I’m not making judgements – merely presenting facts.
Chas,
I’m shocked that you disown Fagan as a Rugby League man despite his numerous books and websites devoted to his beloved game. Who acknowledges his alleged impartiality?… the NRL? Maybe the home of rugby.
league, the Daily Telegraph?
sheek said | February 28th 2008 @ 3:04pm | Report comment
Steve et al,
Firstly, Sean Fagan. I have a lot of faith in him because he has spent countless hours trawling old newspapers of the day for his info. Newspapers are next to primary sources, primary being face to face. The rest of us are happy to read someone’s opinion/research from a book, often 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 10th hand, which might/might not be factually accurate.
Also, I don’t think Fagan is biased towards league. It is obviously his first love, but he’s willing to shoot down any of the codes fiddling with the truth. And he’s researched more thoroughly than most.
This stuff about about rugby union players going off to war & rugby league players remaining behind has got to stop! Let’s not start re-writing history. Most of the young men who went off to war thought it was a jaunt. It was only later, too late for some of them, that the horror of war dawned on them.
But at the beginning, many of them thought it would be a lark. It had nothing to do with King, country, duty, patriotism or whatever. There’s was also a very anti-British feeling in Australia. Some of it Irish catholic based, but also anti-empire based .
I don’t know the full story of Queensland rugby union/league. But I do know, from reading Ian Diehm’s book, “Red, Red, Red: The Story Of Queensland Rugby’, that rugby union owed a great deal of its revival to a spat (civil war) between the QRL & BRL in the late 1920s, if I remember correctly.
So union can think league for that!!!
Spiro Zavos said | February 28th 2008 @ 5:30pm | Report comment
I want to clear up a matter that has been raised against me in The Roar from time to time about the issue of the rugby league code and its attitude to conscription in the First World War. The context for my article in the SMH was an Anzac Day RL test match between Australia and NZ. The advertising for the match showed Australian players in the old Anzac uniforms confronting NZ players in the old Anzac military uniforms.
I wrote a piece in the SMH pointing out that this advertising was false to history in that NZers and Australians actually fought on the same side at Gallipoli. They did not attack each other as the advertising implied.
I also pointed out that it was also unbecoming of the RL authorities, and unhistorical, to try to appropriate Anzac Day for the RL code. My reason for arguing this was officials of the RL throughout the First World War did their utmost to ensure that few RL players volunteered to serve overseas, while 90 per dent of first grade rugby union players served overseas. RL players were encouraged to serve a local conscription which allowed them to play in the RL grade competitions.
The media person for ARL wrote a bitter letter to the SMH accusing me of denigrating the RL players who served overseas and sometimes died overseas. The SMH published this letter, despite the fact that it quoted me inaccurately, as an article.
I replied to this article/letter, making the point once again that it was inappropriate for the ARL to try to appropriate Anzac Day for the RL code. I think that Roy Masters some time later endorsed this opinion.
From time to time on The Roar some writers have brought up the ARL attack on me as if it were the truth. I hope that this clarification ends this. Once more, for the record, my article made the point that the RL authorities continued playing their grade competitions. They encouraged their players not to volunteer. That this position was widely condemned at the time by the chauvinstic The Bulletin. And that it was wrong historically to dress up players in the old uniforms to promote the Anzac Day RL test.
My personal view is that the RL authorities were right to continue their grade competitions. The rugby union authorities were carried away with ultra-British jingoism with their decision to close down their men’s competitions, and to encourage rugby players to volunteer.
My understanding, too, is that opposition to the British motives in the First World War was behind the decision of most of the Christian Brothers schools in the western suburbs of Sydney to change from rugby union to rugby league. The Christian Brothers were mainly of Irish origin and they did not identify with a war that they believed (with some justification) involved aspects of British imperialism. This was especially the case after the terrible retribution of the Black and Tans in Dublin and the countryside after the Easter Rebellion.
sheek said | February 28th 2008 @ 6:00pm | Report comment
Spiro,
To clarify, none of my post above was directed at you. We have previously crossed swords on this matter, & following the same story you gave to me that is relayed above, I have been totally cool about how you approached that particular SMH article you refer to.
Unfortunately, there are visitors to The Roar who remain ignorant of the events of WW1, especially those who have an axe to grind with one football code or another.
Joe FC said | February 28th 2008 @ 6:15pm | Report comment
Spiro
A very thoughtful article & even better clarification. I think you might be right on soccer eventually supplanting AFL as Australia’s major national football code but I strongly doubt any of us will be around to see it. Beauty as they say is in the eye of the beholder. We all choose to watch & follow whatever our heart’s desire.
John Ryan said | February 28th 2008 @ 7:07pm | Report comment
Interesting piece Spiro,cant see how you totaly avoided the Super League mess which split Rugby League in two and from which it is only now recovering,to Steve, seeing as how we are not happy about some Rugby League players not racing off in the First World War when the conscription issue split the nation,look up Mannix some time.
I will raise the FRU and their collaboration with Vichy and the NAZIs during WW2, and the outright theft of the assets of the FRL,and the non return of such assets to the FRL,which do you think is worse playing football in a society split by class and religious dislike (Catholic Vs Prods)or a group that profited from cooperation with a govt who had a hand in mass murder,as did the FRU,every one can bring up the past
Redb said | February 28th 2008 @ 7:44pm | Report comment
Let’s be clear. Any reference to an article or research by Roy Masters or Sean Fagan has to be taken with a grain of salt. They are biased Sydney based journos blatantly propping up their own code to the detriment of footy – Aussie Rules.
I love my footy, enjoy union and soccer, and watch the SOO with RL. RL is a media owned entity and in particular the Melb Storm are a propped up shell for expat kiwis. I miss the days of the Balmain Tigers with Siro!
Soccer will grow, but I think one of the rugby codes is more at risk than footy – but then again I’m biased. Passion for AFl is far greater than any other code in OZ – a much harder nut to crack than some people think.
cheers
Redb
JimC said | February 28th 2008 @ 8:06pm | Report comment
Redb – So RL gets a real fair go in the Melbourne press?
Anyway I’m not as bullish on Soccer as the rest of you. I think there will be a natural tendency for the clubs to overextend themselves seeking success – especially given the wage competition from outside Australia. It’s still early days for the A-league.
The most important thing for any sport is to keep its feet on the ground. Rugby league’s recovery from the Super League debacle is largely because of a well policed salary cap and this is one of the sport’s big advantages over RU and A-League right now.
A salary cap keeps the clubs solvent, and means the players have a bit more in common with the fans – It’s a lot easier to support a team through a bad patch when you know many of the players are on $60000 per year than when they are overpaid pre-madonnas. If that means a few of the more grasping ones head off to another country or even another sport then so be it. Rome was not built in a day.
sheek said | February 28th 2008 @ 8:22pm | Report comment
Oh boy, some of you guys are out of contro here.
In case you missed it, you’re all in a no-win situation.
Something along the lines of, “let he who has not sinned cast the first stone”………………..
Neither rugby union, nor rugby league, nor Soccer, nor AFL, nor any sport, can claim purity.
Westy said | February 28th 2008 @ 8:58pm | Report comment
Redb…. Again your passion is to be respected but I hope you have actually read Sean Fagan “s work. You might not like his conclusions but his work is wll researched. Remember two conscription referenda were defeated by by more than a few disgruntled catholics. This catholic population represented about 21% of the population and still formed about 19% of total enlistments. Your wholesale demeaning of his work is unnecessary.YOU see as someone who does try in Western Sydney for both rugby codes the historical classist and elitist attitude of the Australian Rugby towards working class people, indigenous Australians and migrants was and is appalling and is one of the greatest indictments on those who run the game. IT was downright nasty. For this they have no comeback. Rugby continues to put scarce resources/ promotion into schools with multi million dollar fitneess centres largely recently funded by the taxpayer, scrummaging machines, Physiotherapists, specialist coaches. You can tell I have seen it in action Oh ST joseph’s give indigenous scholarships but only to those who excel in sport..Give me a break “sport of choice ” for GPS schools. They did not wish to mix or play the Plebs. This is one of the real achievements of Aussie rules its rejoice in all classes playing against each other.
Chris said | February 28th 2008 @ 9:26pm | Report comment
God imagine that the Aussie Rules,Rugby Union,Rugby League and Gaelic Footballs all played the same game,then we be a big rival to Soccer.
Michael C said | February 28th 2008 @ 10:05pm | Report comment
Good to see you Redb,
As a non Rugby person, the economic rationalist in me would say that the 2 Rugby codes MUST merge. End of story.
I was not aware of the depth of animosity so illustrated herein.
All I can say is – build a bridge. Get over it. WWI is a long, long time ago. It starts sounding like one of those Euro enmities stretching back before the crusades.
Sean Fagan in my experience is reasonably read. He and I have drossed paths and have both covered Geoffrey Blaineys work – and again, I’d recommend anyone to “A game of our own”. Fagan chooses a more strict interpretation that the AFL is unjust in celebrating 150 years of what was virtually a game of rugby in 1858, whereas I take a different perspective such that with no evidence of what rules THAT series of games employed, and with the diverse backgrounds of many of the participants and organisers – it is fairest to believe that ’scratch’ rules were agreed to on the day. That that day more than any started the ball rolling on the development of the rules – and that the ‘pool’ of written rules was in fact so shallow that it would be largely impossible for any set of written rules – by comparison – to not at least have 4 or 5 ‘(relatively) common laws’. So – on that point, I can clearly state that Fagan takes a Rugby persons bias on his view – and it perhaps suits him to believe that the AFL are trying to ’spoil’ the NRL party. Although, I think he over anticipates the regard that any of the AFL states would have for the NRL party – given that only one pseudo club exists in all over them. And given only 2 AFL clubs exist in the NSW-QLD NRL heartland, well, I don’t think any AFL celebration will make enough noise to drown out the NRL neighbours and their raucus partying.
So – is Fagan completely untouched by a level of pro-League bias. I’d believe that he can’t avoid it – but then I can be accused likewise the other way. And perhaps, the thruth lies somewhere in the middle – - which, is generally the case – because simpletons make conclusions based on single perspective views………which could lead to a discussion about Murali, cricket and umpires calling no-balls with the naked eye……but, not today.
Westy –
one of the real ‘achievements’, YES, and we could perhaps congratulate ourselves – - – but, the quirk of historical timing that effectively ensured that Melbourne went down the path they did is probably more responsible than any ’superior design’. And that quirk, or little historical window….sometimes I wonder just how wide open it was. Was it only a 3 or 4 year window? If I was a serious historian I’d love to do a thesis on that. Because it also relates to the ability of Victoria to influence other states, and, in certain respects, only the spoiling role played by the very English gents of old Sydney town and their ability to cut Queensland off from Victoria has ensured that the modern balance is as is. Ah, but for love of King and Empire. (or Queen).
Redb said | February 28th 2008 @ 10:11pm | Report comment
JimC, put this way, when your owned by News Ltd – Herald Sun in Melbourne you get a lot more fluff pieces that you deserve. Rugby league gets the press it deserves for a game that gets ave crowds of 12,000 in a sports mad city. The AFL would pull 150,000 to 250,000 week in week out- now you tell me which sport you could cover in Melbourne.
Westy,, i’ve read several of Sean Fagan’s articles and they are biased towards rugby league. He may research but his conclusions and use of stats is geared in one direction. If your a rugby league supporter from Sydney his articles would support your views.
cheers
Redb
Westy said | February 28th 2008 @ 11:02pm | Report comment
Redb….despite being a Sydney boy I have lived in and enjoyed life in Melbourne . I enjoyed Melbourne crowd support, The best in Australia. However some sports journalists there were on the whole more narrow minded and shallow in their knowledge of sport in Australia than in Sydney. For example cricket , even at a state and district level gets much better coverage in Sydney than in Melbourne in my experience over a 2 year period. I cannot but think this reflects the lack of success of Victorians in australian cricket . This is not a snide remark but a real problem. Lucky Shane did not play for ST,Kilda. But no one talks about this in Melbourne press. In Sydney there would be article after article. This does reflect a problem. During a cricket test InVictoria the VIC/TASsy commentators seem to be concerned with cross promoting AFL or discussing its issues. It probably also reflects there are no Victorians in our team. A fact that I find sad. That the 2nd most populous state cannot produce a current test player. Being catholic in my sporting taste Sydney offers a greater range of good quality sport.to attend. The cultures are however quite different. Melbournians go to the game . In Sydney it depends what else is on. The beach even in winter plays a powerful role in my city. Sydney on the whole does not really care what happens in Melbourne. Melbourne often seems more concerned.
The Answer said | February 28th 2008 @ 11:39pm | Report comment
Michael C,
I’m glad you prefaced your comments “as a non-rugby person” because it means your following line doesn’t need to be taken seriously.
You state that “the economic rationalist in me would say that the 2 Rugby codes MUST merge. End of story.”
I ‘m perplexed as to what theory of economics you subscribe to. If you are a true economic rationalist, would that mean that all sports need to merge so there is just one? The most economical number. Or do you think think that maybe just league and union should merge because “as a nonrugby person” you think they look the same.
Rugby people might disagree.
Why MUST they merge and importantly how would it work?
Does the new sport have 13 or 15 players? Or do we call it even at 14?
Lineouts in or out? Six tackles or unlimited? One point field goals?
Rugby League fans like quick play the balls, but plenty of Union fans like the way the ruck and maul work. So how does play that out?
Then once you have got your rules worked out. The economic rationalist in you might want to answer the next few questions.
Rugby League is growing as is Rugby Union, if that is the case, why would they want to merge. Their supporters obviously like the various brand of what they are watching so why would you need to dramatically change it. What guarantees are there that they would like the Michael C inspired Union/League lite?
Also, as an economic rationalist you aren’t taking a very global view, seeing you are an AFL fan that is forgivable.
Your view occurs only because you live in the Australian market and doesn’t take into account that the league and union playing countries outside Australia don’t face the same problems (hence the problem creating any sort of standard economic model, the key for an ecomonic rationalist, but you’d know that, being one).
Are you proposing that once you have come up with your mergered rules you will jet over to South Africa and say “hey chaps, look we’ve decided to completely change the rules of rugby because it will get the league fans hooked in Aus, so if you could make the following 873 changes to the way you play the game you love that would be ace.”
Then repeat the process at every other country that players either or both sport.
The economic rationalist in you might decide there are better ways to spend your time.
But, don’t worry I forgive you after all you are a “non-rugby man”, if nothing else…….
chris said | February 29th 2008 @ 12:10am | Report comment
If think you can not have 2 pro Rugby codes now but it will take both sets of officals and fans to forget about the past and look to the future.I wish the AFL boys and GAA Footballers where part of a Rugby set-up but that thought is in cuckoo land.
I think the problem in merging the 2 codes will be Rugby Union as they make out they don’t want change and are happy with the present rules(in which England play 10 man Rugby).I feel that the Rugby Union bodies of Australia,Tonga,Fiji,New Zealand,France,Western Samoa,Wales and even Ireland wouldn’t mind something a bit different.
Michael C said | February 29th 2008 @ 6:21am | Report comment
The Answer -
exactly – not entirely serious.
BUT – to the Americans in the CBA ads (‘watch us stand”, “game designed before the elbow was invented”) – they would conclude that RUgby Union and League are effectively one and the same game – the nuances are too minor (and players have for years and years swapped from one to the other). Therefore, it is a major financial inefficiency to try to sustain both at all levels ….. as the ARU found out with the ARC.
Obviously however, the US folk in this scenario (the CBA ad) would probably just decide it’s all pretty similar to Grid Iron, that you’d be better off with more pads and helmets – and that the Rugby game is still too similar to what Teddy Roosevelt threatened to ban 102 years ago that actually forced the US Rugby variant to remove a lot of the formation plays that probably lead to the notion of the game played in heaven – cos it sent more people there than any other. I cringe everytime I hear that ‘description’ – not something I’d brag about – but I assume there’s a different reason originally.
But – certainly – the reality is that people like your good self – in the tradition of a Union rule book full of “Don’ts” can only see why you can’t do something (merge the 2 codes)…….
Look – I realise it would be a simple process as Chris points out, there probably would be a fair few countries with no major issue about doing it – and for whom it might be far and away the best outcome for ongoing sustainability (the little countries….the little ones)
And true – I realise entirely that my view is based on living in Australia where the Rugby codes are engaged in open warfare in a wider environment of open football warfare. However, globally, I would suggest there would still be many locations where it would be beneficial for the combined entity to move forward.
Westy –
these days the reason that the exploits of Vic cricket is given the coverage it ought to is that so much ‘news service’ is derived from Sydney – where by the exploits of NSW origin cricketers, golfers, bands, murders are seemingly given a ‘national significance’ rating. It is frustrating and drives people away from certain outlets as reliable sources.
And thankyou very much, NSW folk, who sent out that time bomb Mark Waugh to get Matt Elliott – he never got back after that ‘accident’ – stitched up good and proper he was
There was even a NSW push that MacGill was a better spinner than Warne…..as if. But, even there, the NSW cricket/media mafia was gunning to kick a Vic.
they succeeded with Lawry, Wiener, Higgs, Yallop, Bright, Jones, and Hodge. Siddons never got a look in. Only big Merv and Maxie Walker – who proove that Vics have to resort to playing the clown role……
chris said | February 29th 2008 @ 9:23am | Report comment
The English RFU (Rugby F**k Up)are the ones who but both Union and League on the divided line that it sadly still is today.
I can never work out why the New Zealand,Welsh and France Rugby Union never went to Northern Union rules as they where working class.
Michael C said | February 29th 2008 @ 9:44am | Report comment
btw – JimC -
I agree with Redb, in the News Ltd press especially, the Storm gets a very fair share of coverage :
given, the level of support (attendance, membership)
given, the level of Victorian involvement in the competition – zero or next to zero players, Storm populated entirely by NSW & QLD players, feeder team located in Toowoomba??, RL in Melb is really limited to about 4 clubs with any decent structure – the rest if you check the websites you’ll see club names and logos for clubs that don’t actually exist.
Soccer gets great coverage, certainly Fairfax (Age) are right on side with MVFC. The EPL however will often have greater coverage than the HAL – recognition that more people care about the Gunners, Utd, Ciddy, Spurs than they do about Perth GLory or Wellington Phoenix.
RU – get’s the coverage it warrants – stuff all.
Westy -
okay, winter temperature is more moderate in Sydney. However, Melb has an entire Bay around which many suburbs are built. It’s a family freindly non ocean beach environment……okay, yeah, water temp and air temp about 6 degrees lower half the time…….
….the Sydney attitude to MElb used to be that we would watch anything in great numbers – the Melb Cup, the footy, the cricket….and when a whole heap turned up for the SoO game back in the mid-90s, NRL thought they were on a winner. However, people don’t JUST GO ‘COS THERE’S NOTHING ELSE ON. THe Storm have discovered that. In the old days that may have been more true . . . . but, certainly since these wretched massive shopping centres have spread like a plague, try to get a car park Sat morning after 10am……….apparently there’s ’specials’ on……and Muffin Break coffee and Wendys donuts………sheesh, to think of that happening in the city of Chapel St and Lygon St and Fitzroy St and Brunswick St……I feel shamed……..
Redb said | February 29th 2008 @ 1:56pm | Report comment
Westy,
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Melbourne has moved well beyond its Sydney envy of the 1980’s. Its time Sydney folk woke up to that. Melbourne has moved beyond Sydney is many other ways as well.
I like Sydney, enjoy the Harbour, the ferries and the pubs.
cheers
Redb
Michael C said | February 29th 2008 @ 2:40pm | Report comment
Redb and Westy -
when Melbourne remembered it was a water front city on by the bay – that helped.
when Melbourne stitched up Adelaide and scored the F1 GP – which gives Melb international recognition that money can’t buy – - -well, except that money is buying it……but, you know what I mean!!!
and when Melb had a decent alcohol plan laid out that resulted in a decent ‘bar’ scene in the CBD, alas, the fellow who put that together is currently lamenting some of the high volume nightclubs that are focussed purely on bad alcohol consumption………nothings perfect…hopefully they’ll fix that up.
Likewise, I love a getaway in Sydney, and, I must admit that recent tunnels and tollways (if one is being paid by the boss) makes Sydney that much easier to navigate. That’s one thing Melb have done first, made gooder roads! Now we just need to pay some love and attention to our PT network.
Midfielder said | March 1st 2008 @ 1:32am | Report comment
Redb,
Melbourne IMO must be the worlds greatest sport watching city, which you should be proud of.
I think what Westy was trying to say was in Sydney we don’t care about going to a sporting event as much as the people in Melbourne.
My reason apart from other things to do as Westy put it are, travel around Sydney is a nightmare both road and public transport, Very few sporting grounds are well located or have great parking. Also rugby generally and league especially is almost a good on the telly as it is to watch live. So why get in the nightmare traffic when I can watch it. AFL on the other hand is much better live.
But going to sporting events in Sydney is not the norm, whereas from afar it would appear in Melbourne it is the norm
Redb said | March 1st 2008 @ 2:34am | Report comment
Midfielder,
I agree its certainly easier in Melbourne to go the MCG or telstra dome to watch sport.
cheers
Redb
Midfielder said | March 1st 2008 @ 11:44am | Report comment
Very good read by Richard in the smh today, he takes no sides but belives the World Cup bid has been the match that lit the fuse.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/forces-gather-for-battle-to-win-the-west/2008/02/29/1204226993073.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Forces gather for battle to win the west
March 1, 2008
HINDSIGHT
IN CASE you spend more time with your nose in the sports section than The Monthly or Quadrant, the so-called culture wars are over. The Cultural Elite Soyaccinos came from behind to beat Balmain Riesling Right with Kevin Rudd’s buzzer-beating apology.
But just because we have reached general consensus on things such as reconciliation (good), global warming (not good) and industrial policies that reduce workers’ salaries and conditions (also not good), it is not peace in our time.
Stand by for an even bloodier battle in which entrenched prejudices, distorted versions of history and appeals to the best and worst instincts of Australians will again be common. And this time, instead of skirmishing over an asparagus ravioli with a drizzle of truffle oil, you’ll be lucky to get a decent pie and chips.
Goodbye culture wars, hello footy wars. And we don’t mean the innocuous shadow-boxing in which the four competing codes have engaged over the past two decades, where they would apologetically plonk a franchise in rival territory, hand out freebies to impressionable kiddies like missionaries distributing bibles to illiterate tribesmen, or compete in intellectually bankrupt Aerial Ping-Pongers versus No Necks versus Wogballers debates.
With the Australian Football League stating its intention to accelerate its move into western Sydney and the Gold Coast, and Football Federation Australia enlisting government support for a World Cup bid while expanding the A-League, the Cold War-style division of territory is about to be replaced by hand-to-hand combat.
As the strategic moves in the war rooms of the AFL and FFA escalate tensions, revealing has been the slightly panicked reaction of rugby league diehards at the prospect of the AFL – and, inevitably, the A-League – marshalling forces on the western front.
The Herald’s Roy Masters, one of the few experts intimately acquainted with the machinations of both the NRL and AFL, described the AFL push into western Sydney as “misplaced imperialism” – a sentiment that seemed somewhat unusual given he was, at the time, on assignment with the Melbourne Storm.
Meanwhile, a throwaway line by that sabre-rattling AFL nationalist Ron Barassi that Sydney could one day host four teams prompted predictable Churchillian cant from league dial-a-quotes about how the west would never buckle under the AFL’s blitzkrieg. “We’ll fight them in the bleachers.” That sort of thing.
But, despite those stirring words, you detect some frayed nerves among league supporters. Not because of the strength of the AFL’s multimillion-dollar push, but because they fear their own forces are not yet up for the fight.
The NRL’s hesitancy in expanding its borders and the feudal nature of some traditional heartland clubs – highlighted by the Bulldogs’ recent in-fighting – could make the game more vulnerable than some of its sword carriers would like to believe.
The response of NRL supporters and media propagandists – if not the NRL executive – to a potential invasion of the west is a heavy reliance on stubborn, Soviet-style resistance from a large, fanatical band of hard-core westies.
But while they prepare for the Siege of Parramatta, the invaders are already jumping the trenches and infiltrating the population.
Meanwhile, the AFL has moved on to war footing because the game that grandiosely appropriates the title “football” has made a pact with the Federal Government to bid for the 2018 World Cup.
Until recently Hans Blix would have found only a bunch of unpaid invoices for the relative firecracker that is the A-League in the FFA bunker. But, in Rudd’s patronage, the FFA now possesses a potential weapon of mass persuasion. A chance to sidle up to the Government and, while they are at it, slip a hand in the pocket and grab the funds needed to compete in an escalating arms race.
At the same time, the FFA maintains the handy facade of neutrality.
With the summer A-League not competing head to head with other codes and the World Cup impervious to criticism as a matter of “national interest”, it can pretend to be Switzerland as it secretly masses its forces.
The first casualty of war seems to be the Australian Rugby Union which, after recent cuts in government funding, has been left looking as impotent as the Japanese post-disarmament. It does not help that, in a nuclear age, its former generals were still fighting the Boer War. (Or, judging by some Super 14 games, the Bore War.)
Even for a death-or-glory general such as Stormin’ John O’Neill, it could already be a matter of damage limitation as everyone goes over the top.
Michael C said | March 3rd 2008 @ 5:10pm | Report comment
Midfielder -
It’s a more subdued response than some of the outright NRL friendly propaganda eminating from other Sydney based news journos.
Roy Masters – may be ideally positioned to be more aware of the AFL – however, he’s still a NRL apologist who can’t see the forest for the trees on certain issues (as most of us are regarding our relative preferred codes – fair enough, – main point though, is he has self interest in pushing the NRL wagon).
The references to the FFA/soccer/HAL seem balanced – although, you’d almost expect a chorus of soccer knocking accusations.
His recognition that the ARU are on almost deaths door is hardly ground shattering.
His references to the NRL re the soviet style ‘defence’, that’s interesting. I’m glad that’s recognised and in print.
TO me, it will be one of those things people will look back on and say “Hang on, what were we worried about the AFL for? It was sokkah that actually had mobilised forces NOT all along our frontier – but, WITHIN.”
At the end of the day, Rudd and ‘football’ – interesting proposition.
ON a couple of fronts – I await to see just where he stands.
Certainly on a soccer front, it’s one thing to commit $30-40 million to a bid – should that fail, then what?
Midfielder said | March 3rd 2008 @ 6:05pm | Report comment
MC
You have picked up on most points but he is a Melbourne based jurno and his first sport is AFL, in other lifetimes and in prior years he was one who put the boot into football.
One of his points I found interesting was his belief that a bloodbath was about to begin and only AFL & Football were ready for it, not sure if he is right but his analysis of union is interesting as you said.
His words not mind that the bid process will make the Socceroos only good news stories for that national good is worth a through as well.
Keeping it brief he raised a lot of questions, but that a war has begun as he said is interesting.
Dave said | March 3rd 2008 @ 6:57pm | Report comment
the first soccer club to go under will be the Perth Glory
Midfielder said | March 3rd 2008 @ 7:09pm | Report comment
You could be right, players are leaving in droves ,or maybe a new more astute buyer will come along as the Gloery Boys have a proud history and just need the right mix to get the crowds back but from what i have seen so far its like rats leaving a sninking ship
John Ryan said | March 3rd 2008 @ 8:12pm | Report comment
I have never read such a load of rubbish as Michael C take that Roy Masters is a Rugby League apologist,if hes an apologist what does that make P Smith and Caroline Wilson, the jokes that appear on Outsiders and say they give all sport a fair go and then chat and boost AFL at any given time,then we have the crew on The back Page, it quite often turns in an we love AFL show as well.
People can criticize the NRL, the Sydney press jumps all over Rugby League at any given chance, ie The Telecrap,the SMH would prefer to cover RU and fervently hope RL will go away,the man who wrote the article Hinds is also and AFL man so he would not be biased would he.
Kindly dont give us the one about the NRL and NEWs please, as far as I know the AFL is the only sporting group to have the media sign an agreement allowing no unfavourable comment,but then most AFL people seem to live in a bubble where the Media self censors its self and only other codes players and officials do the wrong thing.
Here in Perth were I live say something bad about the AFL never,the Cousins thing only broke because he was a total FW,otherwise it would have been covered up as was Careys past, which now is leaking out but it wont last,the AFL will lean on there usual tame journalists and editors and Poof it will be no more.
I read about 3 papers, read widely on the net, watch sports shows on Pay and there has never been a more molly codled sport than AFL
You also get AFL shoved down your throat through all media outlets constantly and you are not allowed to criticize it in any way shape or form I know I have tried, and some how Micheal C I cant for the life of me see Melbourne being any different,you had a dig at the Storm about players, after 20 odd years how many Sydney born players are in the Swans, 18, 20, 30 I think not, what kinda Miracle do you expect the Storm to perform in about half that time.
9supprise supprise allowing no critical press with
Westy said | March 3rd 2008 @ 10:09pm | Report comment
Michael C… Always interested in reading your comments but to narrow in on Roy Masters is to ignore the vitriol of Patrick Smith against other codes. Roy at least acknowledges his bias but does appreciates some of the skills of AFL. Caroline Wilson is much more biased with no knowledge of other sports , even Patrick knows something about tennis. Sheehan is totally dismissive of football yet people who love skill like Sheedy or Bennet although with obvious bias still very much appreciate the skills of the other codes and can talk positively about them. . Roy has had a good word about the AFL. game. I have read them. You should understand his article was a reaction to a very arrogant, all over the place emotive unAFL like interview by the AFL Chairman which the AFL CEO and operations manager to their credit soon had to clarify. His comments were clearly aimed at the Commission. Bluntly Caroline knows very little of the other codes and has never said anything positive about her appreciation of their skills.This makes her the most narrow major sporting journalist in Australia and one that has little credibility outside AFL. She knows nothing else.
Westy said | March 3rd 2008 @ 10:33pm | Report comment
Michael C ….I know you know but it is difficult to get this message across to the AFL heartland but Sydney SWans have very very few Sydney juniors of which only one is competent regular . One day this may change but 26 years is a long time. Please name Sydney’s Voss, Aka manis, Riewalt.?The Swans have been here for 26 years. Their recruitment of quality elite athletes in a city of over 4 million has been abysmal and has tended to reflect their middle class recruitment push. They are seriously pursuing their existing Irish connection. Good supporter base but skewed to wrong demographic areas with low birth rates. Remember there was an existing Sydney Aussie Rules comp before the Swans. This makes it even worse.You are quite correct the recruitment of elite quality athletes in Queensland has been much more successful.
Midfielder said | March 3rd 2008 @ 10:38pm | Report comment
Just adding Les Murry spin from SBS …..interesting and worth comment, Les at least when its not the A-League can be postive about football.
Australia’s bid to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup will be an unprecedented test case for the undeclared, so called ‘war of the codes’ in this country.
For the first time in the history of football’s long struggle to gain a foothold as a relevant sport in Australian society, football actually needs the help and co-operation of its so-called rival codes to take a giant step forward.
The country’s two most powerful winter sports competitions, the AFL and the NRL would either have to interrupt their campaigns for perhaps two months in mid-season or undergo massive dislocation by losing their biggest and most popular venues.
The World Cup finals will run from the second week in June to the second week in July. Add another two weeks at either end for venue preparation, reparation, various contingencies and the like and the venues are likely to be required for the FIFA event for eight weeks.
With venues like the MCG, Telstra Dome, ANZ Stadium, the SFS and Suncorp Stadium poised as World Cup stadia, the AFL and NRL competitions will either have to go into a two-month mid-season sabbatical or transfer their games to more modest, suburban grounds.
The former is more likely than the latter, but in either case the World Cup organising hosts, the FFA, will rely on the generous co-operation of two large, powerful but increasingly insecure sports living in fear of football’s rampaging progress.
Given the might of the World Cup’s appeal in Australia, as shown by the way the country was galvanised by the 2006 event, and what a home-hosted World Cup would do to advance the esteem of football, such co-operation from the two giants, to give football a leg up, is just about unthinkable.
But should it be? Do Aussie rules and rugby league have so much to fear from football that they should go so devilishly against the national interest and refuse co-operation?
In my view, no.
The war between football and the other ‘codes’ has always been a phoney one and remains that more than ever today.
Football presents no threat to AFL and the NRL and never has, at least not to their traditional popularity and place. There’s no better evidence for this than what has gone on in the past three years.
In that period the A-League’s attendances have grown at a healthy pace. But ironically so have the crowds of AFL and the NRL. Similar can be said of television audiences. In other words football, for all its growth in appeal, is not eating into the markets of Aussie rules and rugby league.
As Frank Lowy, football’s chief, told SBS recently: “We don’t want to threaten anybody. We just want to be successful in our own right.”
Which is perfectly possible if it is conceded that there need not be a turf war. There is enough turf for everybody, even in a country with 21 million people.
The most likely quarter from which a stumbling block will be put before the World Cup bid is the AFL. This is the body which, according to folklore, had its hierarchy opening bottles of champagne every time soccer, in the bad old soccer days, shot itself in the foot. They, at AFL headquarters, apparently still tremble in fear of football’s potential and what its global might do to their sport.
The right advice to them is that they should relax and get a life.
There is no evidence that football is a threat to Aussie rules or is ever likely to be, especially as a deep-rooted institution in its traditional regions. ‘Australian football’, and the obsession it enjoys in Melbourne and across the south of the continent, is just about unshakeable and one doubts if anything will ever change it.
Where the AFL feels more realistically threatened is in its ambition to expand and go beyond its traditional realm. In this it has some time ago declared war not just on football but also on rugby league.
It desperately wants to nationalise its game and lift it to the status of being Australia’s one true national sport, spending massive volumes of money on junior recruitment and expanding its league.
In this it will fail.
For one, rugby league will present insurmountable resistance, so deeply entrenched that sport is in the sporting traditions of the eastern states. I mean, imagine a fixture like rugby league’s State of Origin dying in Sydney or Brisbane, wimply acquiescing to the superior appeal of Aussie rules games between, say, Collingwood and the Swans.
But the major road block will come from football. The game’s global appeal, in a globalised world, is so broad and powerful, no amount of money the AFL derives from television rights will be enough to persuade the grassroots millions to defy its conquering magnetism.
The wisest thing for the AFL to do, and the NRL with it, is to collaborate, stand aside, protect what it has, and support Australia’s World Cup bid in the broad national interest.
But saying that is easy. Convincing the AFL and NRL of it will be the hard part.
Westy said | March 3rd 2008 @ 11:27pm | Report comment
AFL CLUBS …..GOUGE OUT 110 MILLION DOLLARS FROM THEIR POKIE MACHINE REVENUE FROM THEIR SOCIAL CLUBS AND CLUB OWNED PUBS……AGE…..one estimate put it at 150 million. I have no fundamental problem with this I am just getting sick and tired of AFL hypocrisy in criticising League’s clubs grants to rugby league teams. Some AFL supporters see the world through one eye. This has been a common souce of funds for AFL clubs the Melbourne Sporting journalists just never said so. Collinwood ’s gross reveue was 35 million although the club says its only 28 million.
Michael C said | March 4th 2008 @ 10:07am | Report comment
John Ryan -
have I ever defended or proposed that Patrick Smith and Caroline Wilson are anything other than self serving and generally negative-slant journos – I have never bought a paper to read their articles – and it’s probably the lack of decent journos in the ‘free press’ that drives most of us here. THe simple fact that we don’t accept at face value half the drivel they put forward. You’re preaching to fellow preachers on that one.
Likewise, to watch certain programs seems like self flagulation – be careful just how angry you intend to let yourself become. It’s not worth it – mate.
btw – I feel your pain…..living in Perth.
Again – if you lived in Melbourne you’d realise that the constant desire for ‘talk’ radio style ’scandal’ (and perhaps driven by having a 24 hr sports radio station in SEN) means that the ‘negative’ scandals and soap opera rubbish is served up so, so much more than what you seem to want to believe. Certainly, in the old days – we didn’t find out half the stuff – - and maybe we were all a little better for it. Maybe some things should remain private – just between individuals, their family network – - – the justice system.
I can tell you one thing, had Ben Cousins played for Collingwood – he’d have his every move covered by the Herald-Sun in Melbounre. There’s no such thing as an un-news-worthy Collingwood story – and don’t forget how rapidly the photos of Ben Cousins asleep in the gutter hit the presses over here.
Swans circa 1987-
Dennis Carroll was from Albury,
David Murphy from Turvey Park
Michael Byrne from North Shore
Anthony Daniher from Ungarie
a little later along came Troy Luff and Paul Kelly amongst others – - however, there’s also those NSW players in the broader competition :
Presently there’s almost 30 NSW players in the AFL – only 8 or 9 are at the Swans.
—–
Yeah, okay, not many ‘Sydney’ born, and predominantly from Wagga/Riverina area – however,
A. don’t get too hung up about ‘Sydney’ kids in the Swans unless you also get really hung up about Sydney kids in SFC and I presume then you don’t want any internationals because they aren’t even Australian, or are they better than VIctorians and QLD kids in the SFC team?? Either, it’s an open player market or it’s a socialist regime dictating that you only play for teams via zones (the old VFL had zones – that was a flawed system).
Anyway – it is true, it is recognised, that Sydney-home-grown kids in the AFL is a weakness. The code is focussing on it. Because – selectively, Sydney folk seem willing to dis-own various regions of NSW from their state – apparently you don’t count half of Wagga, any of Albury, or Broken Hill or Corowa or Deniliquin or Jerilderie………
Michael C said | March 4th 2008 @ 10:32am | Report comment
Westy -
see comments above directed to John Ryan – I don’t like Wilson or Smith (a tear away quick bowler in his time, apparently a hot head – and, often therefore is hypocritical in his comments about the demeanor of others).
In fact – it is the myopic nature of certain AFL journos – and see my article on the AFL tab re. Jim Wilson et al and their narrow attack on the AFL as soft on drugs – who, with no idea or perhaps no interest in the state of other codes, sports etc – have no perspective – and simply presented sloganistic single view rubbish. (or, maybe it was just the editors).
I don’t disagree re. the pokies.
The main difference is that AFL clubs were primarily built around other sources of revenue.
Why – well, simply – we were a pokies free state whilst NSW wasn’t. And Victorian derived pokies revenue has built some wonderful Murray river bowls clubs, RSL’s and golf clubs.
The apparent justication/purpose at the time of introducing Pokies to Victoria was specifically for Sporting Clubs to benefit. Alas, Tatts and other wealthy folk have benefitted too much.
The main sense for me looking at NSW NRL clubs was too great a reliance on gaming revenue. Which is now recognised, and thus the major push for ’seasons ticket memberships’.
At the end of the day – all we can hope is that someone is ‘regulating’ the industry to ensure fair and reasonable dispersements BACK to the community. I gather the maximum amounts taken by individual AFL clubs was around the $3m mark. However, not all AFL clubs – mine in particular – have been able to afford to go down that path – and so, the rich clubs are getting richer……but, it also is the main reason for Patrick Smith going hard at Dick Pratt, as, being on the Carlton FC board and the Carlton FC being a pokies operator.
Michael C said | March 4th 2008 @ 11:01am | Report comment
Midfielder -
AFL ideally doesn’t have as much to fear as NRL does – but we know the ARU has heaps to fear.
I remind that even expansion AFL clubs in NSW and QLD have access to a national player draft, a centralised pool of players and revenue. Certainly an increase in ‘local product’ is desirable, but, shouldn’t be a major issue. QLD is already on-line and the AFL only needs a consolidated presence in Sydney.
Remember – when you talk about expanding beyond traditional areas – that’s traditional ‘dominant’ areas. AFL is well spread over NSW – and always had a presence. LIkewise QLD. The AFL either has to ignore and not support or facilitate those outposts to grow or the chance to grow. Quite rightly they are doing the latter. Population growth alone dictates that all codes must have ‘growth’ plans. Simple. The AFL has already succeeded in some respects in NSW – at Auskick, schools and junior clubs level. Just what the quality that may move through the system is – remains to be seen – but, the pathway is being consolidated and supported from ground up. How much some of those kids – as per Wagga – play AFL, or NRL or cricket or whatever – the main thing is participation in sport. In QLD, 2006 NAB draft, 8 QLD kids in top 32. The AFL just desperately wants a year like that from Sydney – but, even just 4 in the top 32 would do – for now. Who says that isn’t within reach in the next 4-5 years. I think the AFL is banking on it.
And gee, if soccer was the only option outside of Rugby League – then we’d be like England, cricketers unable to hold catches.
One of the main desires of the AFL is to be the pre-eminant domestic ‘brand’. Well, by some measures they are – so, that’s a market protection requirement there.
We know that for ‘national’ team brands – the AFL DOES NOT compete in that market segment.
The AFL core business in a sense is totally separate to the market segment that the NRL dominates (State of Origin), or the FFA dominates (Socceroos) and ARU (Super 14, Wallabies).
And, while the foreseeable future places no more than 2 HAL teams in Victoria – again, no big deal.
However – the whole question of being kicked out of the MCG and Telstra Dome during the prime months of the AFL season – that is intolerable (likewise the NRL) – it’s one thing to start early or delay the start – but, to removed 2 months mid year – which would mean a requirement to offset by 4 months to finish before – just can’t be done.
The FFA needs to do a bit of imaginative work themselves. And, perhaps some of the projected earnings can be borrowed against to build some decent rectangular venues so we don’t need to hear people lament that they sat too far from the action at the MCG. And that’s where the NRL faces the biggest issue – Suncorp, SFS, the Oly Stadium. And if any of the smaller venues are upgraded to 40K capacity such as the new Melb REctangle venue, and Robina, etc then – it’ll be those venues in most demand for most games – especially in the first round of 48 – ‘cos, really, Tunisia vs Ukraine – that IS NOT going to be vying for Subiaco, Telstra Dome or the MCG.
Because – if the FFA don’t work out a way to convert the revenue windfall into bricks and mortar – then I’d suggest they’d be dishing out an awful lot of it in compensation to the AFL and NRL – if, for no other reason than those 2 codes CAN NOT be expected to stand aside and see the FFA take centre stage and profit exclusively from it. And nor would anyone see that as an unreasonable position – simply because the arguments so far are on how much this will be so good for the nation – so, I presume that isn’t seen as just a revenue raising exercise for the FFA???
Rodney said | March 18th 2008 @ 9:45am | Report comment
Clarkey, why would the NRL fear Soccer?
RL is played in countries that have soccer and they get along really well sharing grounds and a lot of fans, all you need to do it look to England and see that.
Did you know Manchester United has a Wigan fan club, yep, they watch all their games on the team bus and go to games, heaps of Soccer fans like RL and vice versa.
Wayne Rooney was asked last year if he was watching the union WC, he said no I don’t like it, but I’ll be watching Wigan this weekend with a heap of the boys on the bus like we do every week.
If any code should fear Soccer, it’s the AFL, they are the ones who have tried for 100 years to keep it down, look at the crowds the Victory get in Melbourne, Adelaide had a few good ones as well, and I seem to remember the Glory getting great support when they had a decent team.
That’s the difference, RL gets along with Soccer where ever RL is played, the only place AFL is played, they fear it.
Good luck AFL, you’re going to need it, the Soccer and RL mob can help each other build stadiums and maybe even build teams that are sister clubs playing in Winter and summer, whats AFL got?
FEAR lol
Rodney said | March 18th 2008 @ 9:51am | Report comment
Oh, and the thing that is really good about it is, all those string beans that play AFL can easily be brought up to play Soccer, but there will always be the big thick set fella who loves to tackle and run with the ball Rugby League, Rugby Union style, eat that fear fella, we know the AFL head honchos and media believe it.
Midfielder said | March 18th 2008 @ 10:24am | Report comment
Rodney
Your points on the co existance of RL & football are very very very true.
I said on an earlier post that in Australia RL had choosen to work with football for the mutual benefit of both whereas AFL its all out war on all codes, …………….love to jump in Dr Who’s time machine and go forward 20 years to see who wins.
Michael C said | March 18th 2008 @ 1:22pm | Report comment
People – please,
you surely jest.
In England, Rugby League is a 3rd class footballing citizen. It is more a ‘local curiousity’ condemned to see out eternity in a couple of northern cities. The lamentation of RL in England is hardly a stunning case study for the NRL to reassure itself that a happy union with soccer in Australia is going to provide benefits to the NRL that it couldn’t derive otherwise.
(noting that the NRL has already exhibited that 80K capacity venues are largely wasted on that code – so, even if soccer were to one day justify larger venues – it’s only going to provide the NRL more venues to half fill)
Look – I will just say that if that is the extent of your business model – using England as an example – then, if I were running the NRL I’d be seriously worried.
And so Rodney – please present the countries you are modelling this upon. France? Russia? High level professional Rugby League clubs/Leagues and supporting broad base of grass roots – such as to be able to extrapolate into the Australian market?
The NRL are running scared of the FFA –
or, if not,
then I’ve underestimated the actual threat that the AFL might provide to the NRL – for I am convinced it’s not that great -
after all, the AFL are not treding on the toes of the NRL in Newcastle, and likely to do so in the Gold Coast, and Townsville, and usurped the NRL in Gosford (where so many would love Melb Storm to instead be based), and what chance the FFA trodding all over Canberra and or Wollongong before they ‘re out…
Ben Buckley I don’t think would give 2 hoots about the eecked out existance of RL in England. And the NRL in Australia is not about ‘just existing’ in the shadows – it’s about thriving, and the Egnlish model ain’t that.
Redb said | March 18th 2008 @ 5:31pm | Report comment
Rodney,
What’s AFL got?….gee let me think…cricket? Whilst we play cricket in summer and AFL in winter is there not the same dual benefit for an oval stadium?
Midfielder,
It makes sense for the rugbies and soccer to get into bed re stadiums, it doesn’t however mean they will naturally benefit in a added it all up against AFL scenario. What your really admiting is that the AFL is numero uno re Tv deal, crowds,etc and the other codes want it, so they jump into bed together. good luck with that, my bet is RL would be the loser.
Re Melb Victory, there has always been good support for soccer in Melbourne, its just domesticially at least the code never got its act together. It should be painfully obvious to anyone who knows the Melbourne sports scene (and that counts you and Rodney out), that 23 odd thousand at the ACL game the other night, when nothng else was on, shows soccer has a long way to go at the sub international level. This is where the AFL does it best work, we also have 300,000 club members, families in the game, we are talking multiple generational support for the code. We also know that AFL is a great game live and that’s not going to change, as we can compare to soccer and realise as a spectacle its as good, probably better. BUT, there is more choice and that is good.
cheers
Redb
Rodney said | March 18th 2008 @ 10:54pm | Report comment
Clarkey, you have no idea about the roots of English RL and how deep they go.
Anything you say about it should not be listened too.
In England, Soccer kills everything, but RL is second when it comes to people through the gate and bums on seats, always has been.
Sky sports ratings have Soccer way way way up top, then SL, then speedway and a few others followed by union.
The only thing union gets over RL in England is Internationals, but that will change as more people see union for what it really is, as they say, most people will watch their country play any sport but where are they the next weekend?
Not at the union are they?
And as for being a 3rd rate sport, well idiot, there are 5 top sports in England who get Government funding as the big 5, Soccer, Union, League, Cricket and Tennis, you work it out.
Also, RL is one of only a handful of sports over there which is guaranteed FTA TV coverage every year as the Challenge cup is protected.
You have no idea, and if you could get the support that RL has in different countries, you’d take it, but you are jealous so you ridicule it, it doesn’t matter how big or small it is in other countries, your code doesn’t register in any of them and never bloody will.
Your code has problems expanding up the Hume Highway let alone anywhere outside of Australia.
You ridicule RL for development in Lebanon, but where is AFL?
Did you know the local comp (in Lebanon) which is 3 years old over there has the Bank of Beirut as their major sponsor?
Also they just got more sponsorship yesterday from a beer company and it stated the local comp will get shown on Sunday nights on TV, yet you put this type of thing down, where again is the AFL?
Not bad for a heap of Aussie pretending to be Lebanese playing in Sydney huh?
35,000 English fans traveling to France each season just to watch their teams play the Les Catalans dragons is also crap huh?
You tell that to the Perpignon airport, hotels, cafe’s and every other buisness over there who are laughing their way to the bank.
Where again is the AFL?
Clarkey, the Swans and the Lions have never sold out their home grounds, the SCG had a capacity over 40,000 just like the Gabba, should they move out to smaller venues?
Redb said | March 18th 2008 @ 11:03pm | Report comment
The Swans moved 3 games to ANZ stadium last year and got over 60,000. do the math.
Your comments are well less than accurate. Next thing you’ll tell us that the NRL Sydney blockbusters sold out all their games last weekend. Did they? What was the venue capacity for those games?
Rodney said | March 18th 2008 @ 11:25pm | Report comment
Hey, just telling the truth, and how many freebies for the 3 AFL games, I seem to remember non stop ads running on TV, wasn’t there also 10,000 ladies there who got in for free to do some promotional work for Cancer or something?
You are right about the games on the weekend, how about we look at the last game the swans played at Stadium Aus?
1,500, if that lol.
Michael C said | March 19th 2008 @ 6:16am | Report comment
Rodney -
Who’s Clarkey?
You keep crapping on to a figment of your imagination.
It’s a bit sad really.
I do believe the only comment I’ve seen here re Lebanon was from someone mentioning that they were represented in an earlier RL WC when there was NO local comp. You haven’t countered that, only indicated that there is a current 3 year old competition – which, maths being the tool – indicates that there can’t have been a local competition last time ’round.
English RL –
IS IT A BUSINESS MODEL the NRL would aspire to?
IS IT A SPORTING MODEL the NRL would aspire to?
Rodney said | March 19th 2008 @ 9:02am | Report comment
It’s something International AFL would aspire to.
And clarkey, if you are not him, why do you respond to me?
Hmmm.
Redb said | March 19th 2008 @ 9:03am | Report comment
Rodney,
There was one game agaisnt St kidla with the anti-cancer promotion. The other games were West Coast and Collingwood, regular home and away games that got 60,000 plus.
The next Swans game at ANZ will be a real game not a practice match, I”m tipping a better crowd. West Coast Apr 12, Essendon May 18, Collingwood July 5th and Geelong Aug 16th.
cheers
Redb
Michael C said | March 19th 2008 @ 10:00am | Report comment
Rodney –
You post such drivel that either one ignores you completely or responds – I can quote you irrespective of whom I am.
However – I certainly am not, and have never been ‘Clarkey’ – I have no idea what you’re going on about, it makes you look a right twit and the sooner you cease with it the sooner we can appear a little less like a bunch of absolute dills rather than just time wasting work avoiding dills.
re your point. CERTAINLY – the AFL would love a ‘niche’ like RL has in England (although given it’s taken RL 113 years to consolidate that particular niche – who knows).
My main point is that the NRL in Australia is a bit unique because it is numero uno in a far greater proportion of a single nation/population than RL is anywhere else in the world. All other ‘international’ evidence would suggest that this is an anomoly.
However, just as the AFL makes forges it’s own path in a country NOT like the rest of the world, so too can the NRL.
Thankfully – for the time being – Australia is a totally different kettle of fish to anywhere else. Sadly, the nearest theoretical model of the US is such a vastly larger population and econominc (well, maybe not a good reference at present) domestic base that the US models don’t really apply that well. So – Australia – stands on it’s own.
And – personally, I don’t reckon that the NRL will be ‘warmly embracing’ soccer as something that’s immensely great for Rugby. Publically – YES, of course. But – behind closed doors, the NRL will be hugely nervous – - if, for no other reason – it’s the unknown – the future.
Redb said | March 19th 2008 @ 10:12am | Report comment
Michael C,
I thinks it time to go the ignore route. Said poster does not address anything in a adult constructive way and has no intention to do so. Just trolling along our Rodney. Bye.
cheers
Redb
Rodney said | March 19th 2008 @ 3:37pm | Report comment
Well I thought I showed you RL is bigger in places than you guys give it credit for, if you can’t handle it, too bad.
No mention of the French and the money they get from the poms, the BBC, the ratings compared to other sports in England, I guess I must be lying huh?
If you guys didn’t go on with the same stereotypical anti League BS, I wouldn’t give it back to you.
Fair’s fair isn’t it?
Cheers.
chris said | March 19th 2008 @ 8:16pm | Report comment
If the NRL and Rugby Union in Australia and New Zealand want to be serious about there future then they need to forget and ignore the bollocks between each for the last 100 years and join together.The new ELV laws in the Super 14 esp the Western Force v Canturbury game to me was like watching a hybrid of Rugby League and Union.
League is going no-where around the world,while Union is slowly gaining attention but it will never be a massive force on a global scale if they are going give us world cup finals like that crap which the Springboks ugly win over England.
And if the Sydney Rugby League fans don’t like the idea of both Rugby codes to become one then ask them where are the 40000 fans who went on the street’s to protest against South Sydney getting booted out(and rightly so).
If you really want to blame the mess of having too many codes in Australia then blame the old English Rugby Football Union for causing the breakaway back in 1895.
Yarra Yarra said | March 19th 2008 @ 9:34pm | Report comment
Err,,,excuse my ignorance. If Michael C is correct in that rugby league in Australia is an internatioal anomoly, and it really is just a big game in Australia and has much smaller outposts in the rest of the world, doesn’t that mean it is essentially an Australian game? Particulalry as it is the NRL that decides all the rules and controls the game.
If Aust rules expanded to match the current international range of rugby league, wouldn’t both codes be the same i.e. Australian games with an international presence?
Michael C said | March 19th 2008 @ 10:45pm | Report comment
Yarra yarra -
On the other thread I’ve rattled of some info from the RLWC website.
England 250K registered players, Australia up there too. Then, NZ, has dropped from 40k to 22K, France is about 25K, next best is PNG with about 10K – roughly equivalent to AFL in PNG at present.
Other Top 10 nations have 1000 or less. Scotland, top 10 has never had a professional club. Reality, outside of Eng and Aust, there’s probably less than 70K-80K registered players. We have heard how the game is in financial trouble in NZ.
I would never suggest RL as an ‘Australian Game’, after all, the Australians followed first the Poms themselves and then the ground breaking Kiwis to go down the RL path. Nothing ‘Australian’ about it really – just a ‘franchise’.
My main assertion is that outside of the top 4 nations – 2 of which have less registered players than the AFL has in Tasmania – but, outside those Top 4, the remainder of contenders at the RL WC are really and truely scraping the barrel – they are nations each with AFL ‘international’ equivalency. And outside of the top 10 and into the affiliate nations – well, enough said.
Midfielder said | March 19th 2008 @ 11:39pm | Report comment
and the spin from MC goes round and round and the spin goes round and round
Redb said | March 20th 2008 @ 8:14am | Report comment
Midfielder,
You can’t say MC doesn’t put in the hard yards in producing an argument/debate. At least its not mindless myopic and emotive drivel that you get from some here, although The Roar is far better than most public sporting forums. Most posters fail to address the amount of detail points in his posts, by all means challenge them point by point, but just saying its spin sells your views short.
Sermon over, the footy is about to begin.
cheers
Redb
finalsiren said | March 26th 2008 @ 12:15pm | Report comment
All writers and posters for The Roar could stand to benefit from reading some thoroughly researched work on such matters.
Here’s a starting point “The Games Are Not The Same: The Political Economy of Football in Australia”
http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/ras/article/viewFile/768/894
chris ash said | April 11th 2008 @ 4:27pm | Report comment
someone answer me this. What other game in the world do you get a point for MISSING.
i hate AFL with a passion says the proud GPS boy.
Norm said | April 11th 2008 @ 4:58pm | Report comment
I knew their was a reason I liked GPS boys.
treizistes said | April 11th 2008 @ 5:52pm | Report comment
Chris, being a rah rah is better than a chip chaser.
Rugby League.
chris ash said | April 11th 2008 @ 5:56pm | Report comment
i have no idea what ur talking about treizistes. i don’t appear to be down with the lingo sorry.
treizistes said | April 11th 2008 @ 5:59pm | Report comment
Chris.
GPS boy = Rugby Union = Rah rah.
AFL = Chip chaser, AwFuL, GayFL, Flogball, Fumbleball, Vic ball, No balls, or 16 drunks chasing a $5 note around in a dark alley.
chris ash said | April 11th 2008 @ 6:00pm | Report comment
haha treizistes – very good!
Michael C said | April 11th 2008 @ 10:46pm | Report comment
Chris Ash -
oh dear, you’re soooo original and witty.
A point for missing is based on the concept of a Rouge. Any student of the history of ‘football’ would be aware of this. To you it may seem a crazy concept, what, having multiple scoring zones…….almost as crazy as the Rugby codes and Grid Iron having a field wide scoring zone that is a greater ‘goal’ of the game than kicking a goal…..or the apparent ‘true football’ that allows ’scored’ goals rather than JUSt kicked goals.
Crazy….really.
Now – a point for missing perhaps is an 1800s rule conceptual.
Like allowing a fair catch (mark) …. not that was in the 1863 London FA rules, as was the absence of a x-bar…..gee….is AFL actually buried in the past?
but – then, the entire concept of ‘off-side’ is based on the military concept of ‘off the strength of your side’ as pertaining to the battle fields of the 1800s……so…..choose which ‘ye olde’ rules of football rules you think are ancient, trivial, ridiculous…….
Rationale for point for missing – helps avoid drawn games. Have a look at what lengths other codes go to to avoid drawn games. A point for missing suddenly appears pretty ‘clean’. But – by all means, continue to deride the rule and the code……if that’s you major point of concern – then your’s is truely a blessed life.
…or are you going to launch a tirade at the lack of x-bars, lack of off-side, lack of squared corners, etc etc – or is it just too hard to comprehend something a bit different?
treizistes
that’ll be 18, not 16 – 16 on the field was the old VFA for a time. Not any more. If you want to ‘appear clever’ – - at least get it right!
Now – we could launch into soccer resembling a bunch of Irish dancers jigging around unable/unwilling to acknowledge the presence of their arms, the similarity of a soccer ‘wall’ to a game of 10 pin bowling…..
….the many ones about union boys and their particularly ‘personal’ relationship within the scrum and the aptness of a fellow being named the ‘hooker’ amidst that…..etc etc
But – that’s all pretty lame, juvenile and banal…….oh….sorry, that’s the path you just went down guys……..real clever……real disappointing really. Be kinda nice to avoid that crap on ‘theRoar’.
Dublin Dave said | May 7th 2008 @ 11:39pm | Report comment
Was there really a “war” between all the codes rugby (union and league), soccer and Aussie Rules back in the 19th century?
Didn’t the British Isles rugby tourists in the early years (they weren’t called Lions until the 1920s) play some of their matches in Australia under “Victorian Rules” ie Aussie Football?
Sounds too conciliatory to be any part of a “war” to me.
Cros said | July 27th 2008 @ 10:24am | Report comment
In a global world, where money speaks loudest, Soccer and Rugby Union will eventually prevail on the Australian Sporting landscape. It may take a few years, but it is incremently happening now. Sonny Williams has just signed with French Rugby. At least a couple of AFL stars have crossed to American football. The trickle has only just started. AFL and League will be reduced to suberban ‘bun-fights’, with their champions having defected to the International games where they can play on a far bigger stage.
True Tah said | July 27th 2008 @ 10:46am | Report comment
Cros,
if money is the factor, the NFL will kill AFL, league and union combined.
Thankfully American sports administrators have historically not been too interested in expanding their games.
Cros said | July 27th 2008 @ 6:20pm | Report comment
True Tah
In the current context I agree, but think about it. AFL will never be much more than what it is now. League is going backwards. Soccer and Rugby salaries, along with advertising rights are increasing. Qantas, Vodafone.. the direction is clear. Why? Exposure to a bigger market. If you’re a young talented athlete looking to make a career in one of these sports, I know where I would be going. Look these games will still be around, but the sporting landscape in say 20/30 years time will look very different. And contrary to popular opinion we are very much connected to a wider world.
Michael C said | July 27th 2008 @ 8:24pm | Report comment
Cros -
don’t believe for a minute that the careers of Sav Rocca and Ben Graham in the NFL will deminish the AFL at all. Rocca was struggling to eek out his last 2 years at AFL level and for him to be able to head stateside as a punter is a bonus – - but, the reality of the exercise is that people have seen how cut throat a career it is, and how little certainty even a ‘contract’ provides.
Graham, showed the sense perhaps to curtail his career one year earlier than it might have stretched – - and, yet, his club has only gone from strength to strength.
- – -
the reality is, if money were the ultimate goal – then all the basketballers who opt for AFL careers should instead by sticking with basketball – - not on any basis of the domestic competition, or potential to play for olympic gold and represent the country – but, the odd chance of ‘making it’ in America.
And yet, they keep opting to play AFL (most recent example, Todd Goldstein for North Melb debuted 3 wks ago – was in the same elite development camp as Patrick Mills about 3-4 years ago).
As far as sustaining a decent domestic competition, the AFL has the massive advantage of NOT losing players so readily to other codes (RL vs RU) and overseas.
I think you’ll find that it’s the parents who mostly push kids for the motive of potential financial returns, and many kids are just playing for fun and to be with their mates – - – the desire for financial return is a pretty pore motivator.
Redb said | July 27th 2008 @ 8:38pm | Report comment
Suburban comp? – yeah that’s the AFL and loving it.
Carn the Bombers.
Redb
Midfielder said | July 27th 2008 @ 9:17pm | Report comment
Cros
I think you missed an historical truth both RL & AFL have massive supporter’s bases and a local media who know of little else. The Olympics is a perfect example with 7 having the voice of rugby call football ……. why they have no football person.
To break down the media and local support base is not an easy task. Also union more than even league has a lot to worry about the higher salaries. One union has so few players replacing those lost to NH clubs if union lost players on mass will be impossible, and second the public support for union has to some extent been because of the national team. Union with a culture of having the best at home will have to adjust to having the third choice players at home…….. Have you seen club rugby ……. no way could these guys create a national comp as the skill level is just not there. Football looses all its best players overseas, but the football community have accepted this and are happy to go to the A-League knowing the best are overseas. Also football player numbers and the ability to bring in players from overseas provide a reasonable quality at local A-League matches.
People carry their teams like a badge of honour and I cannot see AFL nor RL people flocking on mass to either union or league.
An article in the News press a couple of weeks ago indicated the code with the best management will do best, and the code with the less effective management will fair worst. I tend to agree with this.
If we look at the codes only AFL and Football are all over well managed. My rating scale for management is four pronged, at junior level, at semi professional level, at national / international, future expansion.
IMO the codes rank like this, Football is the best managed at junior level Australia wide, but the AFL & NRL also have excellent junior leagues, union at park level junior management is a bad joke and it will cost them big time. At semi professional level my rating again give it just to football more on that it is Australia wide, the various state leagues teams, but both RL & AFL have sound semi professional leagues just below their main league, union has little unless you count the local rugby comps in Sydney & Brisbane and I don’t. At a national / international its football again however football only wins because the AFL has but a few international aspects. The AFL at a national level has been the best run national code for the last 14 years or so but has never been poorly managed, Union at a national level is reasonably run but because of local infighting and the need to work with NZRU & SARU its hands tied to a large extent. The NRL at a national level is a joke with its board split between News and the old ARl , and the ARL board being made up of the 16 teams national teams & NSW & QLD state leagues each and every party the clubs, state leagues & News have their own priorities is worth pointing out that the AFL, NRL & A-League have a youth league and union does not
Summary to date , AFL excellent juniors, excellent semi professional league, the best local competition, lacking only in Australia wide and international status.
NRL, excellent juniors, excellent semi professional league, poorly managed at a national level, rather weak at an international level.
Football, excellent juniors, excellent semi professional league, excellent local national league and international matches.
Union, poor junior management, poor semi professional league, few players and needing agreement with NZRU & SARU coupled with poor player numbers mean at a national level union struggles, only at an international level does union win over the AFL & NRL.
Finally I will get to the future, AFL has no other country chasing its best players and therefore will keep them, but is limited in expanding to NSW & QLD, with some distant hope there may be some Irish connection to provide the missing link in its package.
Union has its players being chased by NH clubs, money will win out, players will vote for the money. Union player base is so poor and the expectation of union followers is such having sub standard players could hurt union.
NRL to PNG, NZ, Northern Territory and WA, and involved in an all out war with the AFL and NH wages the future looks less than what it is today.
Football, women’s league, youth league, grow the A-League to 12 teams, grown the B-League to 10 teams, develop the state leagues for a future FA cup style format, youth league, at club level the Asian Champions league, at national level Asian cups and world cups. Also as funds increase so to will the player quality so the overall standard of play will improve and less players will go overseas.
My final call is the AFL to be the top code and stronger within 10 years, union to be struggling and falling behind, NRL interesting I think will expand to PNG and this may save it in the local sense but will be about the same or less. Football catching and passing AFL and somewhere between 15 and 35 years out.