- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
When it comes to football code war prophecy, Rugby League hyper-ventilator and Penrith Panthers boss, Phil ‘Gus’ Gould, is the ‘Cassandra‘ of our times.
With AFL ovals sprouting like mushrooms in NRL heartland and the clock counting down to the debut season of the AFL expansion team, the Greater Western Sydney Giants, Gould jumped on to his pulpit to sound the alarm.
“Quite simply, the AFL is a monster. You have no idea how powerful, how well resourced, how well connected and how determined this code is in its aim to not only be the No.1 sport in Australia, but to totally obliterate rugby league in the process.
“The AFL has parked itself at Blacktown, the fastest growing area in the country.”
Meanwhile, hovering over Blacktown in the AFL Death Star, serial carbon gas emitter, Imre Salusinszky, fired off a salvo on behalf of the imperialist AFL crusade.
“Apparently, the followers and administrators of rugby league have realised the awful truth: the AFL is coming for your young men and is intent on converting them to the religion of the four big sticks.
“Australian football is superior: not just marginally but to an extent that means soccer and the rugby codes are destined for extinction, at least as major spectator sports in this country.”
That’s right. According to the warped world of Gus and Imre, the western suburbs of Sydney will soon resemble the sci-fi classic ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers,’ where the good townsfolk are replaced by GWS supporting doppelgangers that are created in over-sized AFL football shaped pods.
When “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” was first released, it was, depending on your politics, seen as a classic Cold War piece of anti-communist paranoia or attack on the bland conformity of the McCarthy era.
In the Australian Code War era it perfectly represents the fear some sections of the NRL community have of Andrew Demetrious’s rampant AFL expansionism. And, by latest reports, this will to be not restricted to our shores.
Phil Gould will be presenting this doom laden vision when the brand spanking new independent NRL commission convenes for the very first time. He will implore the commission and his arch-nemesis, NRL chairman, David Gallop, to stand up to the AFL menace and ensure the Western Sydney flock “choose rugby league as part of their lifestyles, for life.”
In situations like this it’s the most hysterical voices that are heard above the parapets. But with hostilities in their seemingly intractable civil war about to come to a formal end, the time is now right for the Rugby League to finally get its act together and for saner voices to prevail.
Yes, the AFL is exploring new markets and setting up outposts with its burgeoning war chest, but one hundred years of sporting culture and generational support does not simply end up in a landfill of discarded NRL jerseys.
The seemingly unstoppable AFL juggernaut will not be taking over Western Sydney in the forseeable future. Just like Starbucks they will find local resistance and end up catering to a niche market and AFL tourists.
Here is my word of advice to the residents of living in the shadow of GWS. If you catch the neighbour talking about the form of Israel Folau and Tom Scully, stay calm and accept the fact that the AFL will find some local adherents.
However, if you receive a blank stare after asking them how the Blues will go in the State of Origin, take a look in their back yard.
If you happen to see a large Sherrin shaped pod, panic!
Athas Zafiris is on Twitter @ArtSapphire
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.