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"Can you smell the fear?", do the other football codes in Australia (AFL,NRL), genuinely fear football?

AFL is a cultural thing in Vic. It's like insulting a Brazilian for liking football.
The issue is the AFL hasn’t deigned to evolve with the times, certainly not in the way/s it actually needs to.

I grew up in Victoria live in QLD. Everyone I know. All my family. All my friends. They follow AFL. Don't label people. It's your perception, but its wrong.
Lighten up, brah; the point is they(the AFL powerbrokers and the absolute lowest-common-denominator portion of their fanbase ie. the Joffa types) bring that perception upon themselves by acting as they do💡
 
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If you're not watching as a fan of one of the teams its not fascinating to you because you're not emotionally invested in the outcome.

As for the being emotionally investment side of things I followed the Balmain Tigers from about the age of six. They merged with Western Suburbs and the merged entity means nothing to me or the NRL as a whole. My connection to the NRL is now through the Holman Barnes Group and their tie-in to the CCM ALW team and the connection the the Wests Tigers CEO (ex CCMFC CEO). I know the coach is Benji Marshall. Couldn't name a player.
 
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I was a fan on TV - that's the point. I also was in a touch football team with a guy who was the son of a member of the Elders board who played form the age of eight until he came out of uni. The chairmen was was the Carlton president. He taught us how to do a drop punt. That took about 5 seconds.

He was then the worst AFL player in our group. i.e. - it's not rocket science.As an aside I suspect that it is easier for a football player to play AFL or an AFL player to play football because they both require a 360 degree view of the field. Quite a different awareness than is required in the rugby codes.
As I’ve emphasised many a time, I feel grateful enough for having gotten into the game/been a tragic of it back when IMHO it still truly was the best purely-‘indigenous' football code on the planet, ie. the early-mid ‘90s.

Then at decade’s end came all the needless, unasked-for rule changes mandated by head-office..and it’s been thus ever since👎🏼

(To say nothing of my eyes finally being opened to the fact the AFL sincerely wants ⚽️ dead in 🇦🇺 by most any means necessary)
 
OR people like me and I'm sure plenty others up north who dislike the game and annoyed the press behind it.
My fear is purely that it smothers anything regards to football - sure doesn't live rent free by contributing to conversation in the thread and I enjoy taking the piss quoting gayfl for lets face it our game has copped worse from their sideline.
Yep we have co existed (ol sockha) forever but lets not consider that’s ok - their admin have worked against ol and new mls I mean apl always.
That is what is in my head more than anything else.
Bullshit, you just bag it because its a Melbourne thing and for some reason you think some plastic rivalry between Melbourne vs Sydney really matters. hahahahahaha
 
the rivalry was around long before plastic came to be hahahaha
It’s bc you mob were(and remain) salty that we were chosen as the nation’s provisional capital until Canberra was completed, instead of youse💡😉

I would guestimate that 80-90% of NPL supporters down here have an AFL club
I’ll go as far as to say that’s begun to change as more of those dual-code fans whose main ❤️ is ⚽️, are waking up to the realisation that the AFL isn’t at all interested in coexistence.
 
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It’s bc you mob were(and remain) salty that we were chosen as the nation’s provisional capital until Canberra was completed, instead of youse💡😉


I’ll go as far as to say that’s begun to change as more of those dual-code fans whose main ❤️ is ⚽️, are waking up to the realisation that the AFL isn’t at all interested in coexistence.
I'm definitely in the latter. I don't think I've watched an AFL game in the past 6 years - except for the 2024 Grand Final.
NRL almost just as much - a couple weeks ago when Souths played in Canberra was the first game I've watched outside of the Grand Finals annually in the same period
 
I’ll go as far as to say that’s begun to change as more of those dual-code fans whose main ❤️ is ⚽️, are waking up to the realisation that the AFL isn’t at all interested in coexistence.
Maybe but if you sit in the stands on ANY Friday, Saturday or Sunday you will hear that days footy score update all throughout the match anywhere match you go to, its unavoidable.
 


also enjoyed this one
 
It’s bc you mob were(and remain) salty that we were chosen as the nation’s provisional capital until Canberra was completed, instead of youse💡😉
haha good one BA, tbh I'd say that may go back to the days long before me - and to the anglo's more than us ethnics when I think about it - I just like the city rivalry, its been hoots for decades.
 
Maybe but if you sit in the stands on ANY Friday, Saturday or Sunday you will hear that days footy score update all throughout the match anywhere match you go to, its unavoidable.
so you saying at your SMH games they announce gaifl score updates ?
Fark that, never hear any NRL updates whilst at our NPL games for the record nor do I care about it might I add.
 
> But there's another, much bigger, irony that hasn't been touched on at all
> by the media in Sydney. On the same day as the 'soccer riots' took place
> between Sydney United and Bonnyrigg in Parramatta (arrest count single
> figures), rather more trouble was afoot across town at the Rugby League
> game between St. George and the Sydney Roosters - twenty eight arrests to
> be exact. Anyone read that in their Sydney paper in the days that followed?
> No? Me either.
>
> Fights at the League game? Just the lads having too much beer, that's all.
> Fights at the 'soccer'? Ethnic warfare - that's the message from Sydney's
> media.
>
> All of which wouldn't be so bad if there was some balance somewhere - but
> so far, only ABC televisions The Glasshouse programme has managed to take a
> stab at the difference in coverage, labelling some of the reporting at
> worst, 'racist'. Couldn't have put it better myself.
Ahh I remember this show
 
so you saying at your SMH games they announce gaifl score updates ?
Fark that, never hear any NRL updates whilst at our NPL games for the record nor do I care about it might I add.
I have heard quite a bit of NRL at both local Griffith games back in the day, and at Canberra NPL games - so I think it's quite on the money. I'd expect some of it to be around Sydney too. My Zio - has been quite involved in football, particularly around the Nepean and Southern Districts over time - essentially only engages with NPL + pyramid, but most strongly with the Rabbitohs.
 
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so you saying at your SMH games they announce gaifl score updates ?
Fark that, never hear any NRL updates whilst at our NPL games for the record nor do I care about it might I add.
LOL no, what he means is you’ll overhear other spectators nearby talking about AFL or whatever. I assume that in the first decade or so of the NSL’s existence, when it was still a winter season, you’d see blokes bring their transistor-radios to the ground so they could listen to the VFL/NSWRL(as they still were then) broadcasts while at the sokkah.

Ahh I remember this show
Back Berner was great value too. That said, The Gruen Transfer did a tasteless-as-fuck anti-⚽️ skit featuring an actual AFL player w/North Melbourne just before(or during) South Africa 2010.
 
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