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The most recent edition of Channel 9’s ’60 Minutes’ program featured a daring insight by Ray Martin into the development of Australian Rules Football throughout the world.
Many may have watched this segment and turned away in disgust at Kevin Sheedy’s comment that Aussie Rules was the greatest game in the world (ie: better than soccer or rugby).
And although this comment may have frazzled some, there was in fact a deeper meaning to this amazing insight.
I was amazed to hear that there are some 20,000 participants in Australian football programs in South Africa, and the vision of raw South African teenagers playing our game on a green grass field in Cape Town was eye opening. When one particular South African was asked, “Why Australian Football?” he replied, “Because it’s unique…and fast…I like fast things.”
Bayanda Sobetwa is Kevin Sheedy’s first South African recruit for the new Greater Western Sydney side. Sheedy now believes that (with conservative thinking) there should be at least 10 South African AFL players within the next 10 years.
The story of Tommy Walsh, now part of the St Kilda Football Club list and a regular in the reserves line up, is perhaps the most common for any Irish AFL recruit.
The dream of earning money and being part of a professional sport is what lures the Irish footballers. However, one can only feel that the development of the game itself in Ireland will irrevocably be damaged, so bad is the reputation of Aussie Rules and player agents over there following the International Rules issues.
What I find particularly interesting in this story is Sheedy’s belief that the game can one day compete with the likes of soccer and rugby on the global stage.
Perhaps it’s just logical to assume that the next step for the game’s international growth after player recruitment is the playing of it in these foreign lands on a regular basis.
At the end of the day, the “experimentation” with international growth is exactly that. An experimentation. Time will tell if the great Australian game can grow into something that the rest of the world becomes aware of and appreciate. I am yet to see any major event, sporting or otherwise, that has truly united the world (perhaps only the Olympic Games) in this decade.
Perhaps Aussie Rules could one day be the sport that attracts a global appreciation.
The first step is to have a fully developed international AFL player from a nation like South Africa competing on the MCG. But as Kevin Sheedy believes, Aussie Rules can better other sporting codes, due to it’s “rock and roll” and unique status.
I am inclined to believe him. Perhaps, one day, one elusive day, that vision will be a reality.
Channel 9’s 60 Minutes Story can be found: here.
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