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    #51
    Is it a taboo subject.........

    You should hear the rivalry between supporters within the League.

    The thing is that the rivalry between League and Union is quite fun in a way, as it can almost be split down lines of elbow-patches vs. cattle dogs.

    But the implied AFL rivalry thing is something I really don't care about. Believe me, all you northern hemisphere onlookers, the thing to get your head around is that the Great Shoulder Chip is always owned by yer Victorian. Apparently in Vic, the roads are straighter, the bananas are yellower, the sport is better and the sports fan, more passionate.

    If you trawl RL blogs, you'll find every 4 or 5 posts, an AFL fan blowing-in and trotting out the same drivel that has MA.

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      #52
      Is it a taboo subject.........

      Posty Webber wrote:
      Believe me, all you northern hemisphere onlookers, the thing to get your head around is that the Great Shoulder Chip is always owned by yer Victorian. Apparently in Vic, the roads are straighter, the bananas are yellower, the sport is better and the sports fan, more passionate.

      If you trawl RL blogs, you'll find every 4 or 5 posts, an AFL fan blowing-in and trotting out the same drivel that has MA.
      You've come out with this chip on the shoulder thing several times, PW, and it's utter garbage. Give me one piece of evidence to back it up.

      Incidentally, if you trawl AFL blogs, you'll find lots of NRL and soccer fans butting in. It happens everywhere.

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        #53
        Is it a taboo subject.........

        Posty Webber wrote:
        I just noticed your bit about me trying to make League out to be of vast importance to Australia.

        Nice revisionism.
        I suggest you re-read your original post which has several references to league and Australia not league and NSW/Qld.

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          #54
          Is it a taboo subject.........

          I meant NSW/QLD when I said Oz. I guess that shows how little I even consider the other states. My bad.

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            #55
            Is it a taboo subject.........

            I guess the age-old arguement between Aussie Rules and Rugby League as to who is "the greatest" will never be resolved... it's all down to where you grew up, or where your local allegiances now lie. I suppose it could be remarked upon that, although four out of the six Australian states have no interest in rugby, the two that are into rugby are the most populous states.

            I find both codes slightly ludicrous in their slightly-chip-on-shoulder attitude, their claims to "toughness" or "greatness", and their evangelical zeal in trying to convert the rest of the world to see the light...

            If any football code in Australia should have a chip-on-shoulder attitude, it is soccer. In past decades, both rugby league and Aussie Rules acted like schoolyard bullies, actively trying to supress the growth of soccer, belittling the code and its supporters as a second-class game, second class citizens. In fact this more often than not involved an element of racism, as aussie rules and rugby were both largely Anglo in its participants, whilst soccer from the fifties onwards was played by a large number of European migrants.
            Aussie Rules and Rugby dominated the media, whilst soccer was given about as much time and space as minor sports such as lacrosse, hockey or volleyball. All this has changed now, of course, but only in the last ten years or so.

            As a game, I must say I prefer aussie rules to rugby league, but I suppose that is only because I grew up in Adelaide and played it a bit at school. I've watched rugby league when I lived in Sydney and Canberra, and it just doesn't appeal to me.... I can see that it has aspects that could appeal to some; it just doesn't appeal to me personally.

            And I soon stopped playing Aussie Rules and turned to soccer, because it didn't take much to see that you had much more chance of looking good chasing a round ball than an egg-shaped one....

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              #56
              Is it a taboo subject.........

              Eeeh, bloody Australians.

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                #57
                Is it a taboo subject.........

                Look. I love playing soccer. In fact I played at a pretty high standard when I was younger man (State League First Division, which was at the time only 2 tiers down from NSL) in the relegation/promotion system.

                And I still do love to play it. But the thing is that I like to watch sport that I don't play. Or even can't play. The fact that NRL players belt eachother at 100% intensity for 80 mins at a time, on hard, dry, Australian pitches is just so extraordinary that I can only marvel.

                It's just great stuff.

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                  #58
                  Is it a taboo subject.........

                  Ahh, a bit of cross-code chest beating is always good fun, and may indeed actually be Australia's True National Sport.

                  To Why On Earth, I haven't spent enough time in the US to get a good understanding of the sports culture there, but I would think that the inter-sport rivalry would be worse here, particularly since we are talking about four varieties of football alone, in a population of just over 20 million.

                  Combine this with the very clear geographical divide in Aussie Rules vs the Rest, the clear class divide in League vs Union, and the Effete Foreigners who play soccer vs Real Blokes who play footy divide (I guess this one is similar to the US) and it makes for a pretty competitive existence.

                  I'll wade in with my 2 cents, and I generally prefer Aussie Rules as it is closer to proper football (see what I'm doing here?), and let's face it, the most obviously entertaining of the codes. The uniforms are better, and the big crowds can make a shit game look better too.

                  However, the last year or the has seen me enjoying NRL more, probably because the AFL is so centred on athleticism that the skills on display are really little better than our domestic soccer league (which at least has the excuse of its 50 best practitioners playing overseas). A fair bit has been written and said about this in recent years, and I think the idea of shortening the game is probably a good start. If players have to trot around for half an hour less per game, there will be increased value in developing other skills.

                  Union as a standalone sport is a joke. Administration on grass. The sooner they merge the 2 rugbys in a kind of Survivor-style challenge to decide the resulting code, the better for all involved.

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                    #59
                    Is it a taboo subject.........

                    I realise this is a very Australia-focussed discussion but the last couple of pages about Rugby Union's "unpopularity" is peculiar in light of , in Europe, the number of 50-60,000 crowds for regular season league games, continued massive growth of the Heineken Cup and the fact that broadcasters are pushing 6 Nations games to peak time Friday and Saturday nights because they are such a ratings winner.

                    I don't think the game's administrators in Europe are at all worried about any threat to it's popularity from any other code, quite the reverse.

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                      #60
                      Is it a taboo subject.........

                      Harry, I think most people are quite aware that Union is much (much) bigger internationally, even if there's some incomprehension at this, given that Northern Hemisphere Union is considered to be exactly what gives the sport a bad name down here.

                      Surely the rugbys will merge at one point, and yes, League will be the junior partner. League's footprint is just too small.

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