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Although primarily a rugby supporter, and former player, I take a keen interest in the two most popular Australian codes.
I was brought up in Sydney, but admire the athleticism and skill of AFL players, and the smartness of the people who run the AFL, while naturally having more understanding of the NRL, both the game itself and the officials.
In recent years the AFL has spent a fortune expanding its footprint in Australia, with great success.
It is played in all five of the major capitals, while the NRL is played in only three, and it doesn’t seem able to persuade Channel 9, its media ‘partner’, to show games in Melbourne at a time when viewers might actually want to watch.
And yet, for all the bumbling ineptitude of the NRL, it’s interesting to note that in this season’s play-offs the spread of communities that actually have a direct interest in the play-offs is much wider than the equivalent in the AFL.
If you look at major Australasian centers of population, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Auckland, Townsville, Newcastle and Wollongong all have teams in the NRL play-offs.
The AFL has Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Geelong in the finals.
And in the first week of the play-offs, all four AFL games will be played in Melbourne, while the four NRL games will be played in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
The difference between the two codes is that the Melbourne AFL clubs have risen to the top this season, while most of the Sydney NRL teams have dropped to the bottom.
Maybe next season it will be the other way round, but the AFL must be hoping for strong shows from Sydney and the West Coast.
Although the NRL is the king in only two states, those two states have more cities of a significant size than the AFL states, and generally bigger populations.
For this reason I suspect that the NRL finals are likely to be bigger draws in terms of TV audiences this year.
And, as a rugby man, the question is whether the World Cup across the ditch will be able to have any impact on the consciousness of AFL or NRL fans when the play-offs are in full swing.
I’m not convinced that scheduling the World Cup to start this Friday is the smartest thing the International Board has ever done, at least from an Australian point of view.
The Wallabies face a big challenge to be noticed over the next four weeks.
Let’s hope they can rise to it.
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