Code dead?
Having devoted the last blog to the rather modest trappings of the Australian Prime Ministership, I watched over the weekend as a Black Hawk military helicopter flew low over Sydney harbour, hovered in the bowl of the city's Olympic stadium and then dipped its nose to salute Kevin Rudd, who was perched in the stands.
'The Black Hawk will bow to the Prime Minister' were the words of the Vegas-style master of ceremonies, as he described this mid-air manoeuvre, a phrase which got some rather quizzical looks from the fans seated close to me.
The dramatic entrance of the helicopter, which dropped a rugby ball from the skies, was all part of the pre-game build-up to the NRL Grand Final, pitting the Melbourne Storm and Parramatta Eels, the climax of the Australian rugby league season.
For the second time in three years, Melbourne won the trophy, which speaks of the fast-changing geography of Australian winter sports. Had someone predicted 20 years ago that a Victorian team would achieve such dominance in what was then an alien sport, the men in white coats would have come crashing through the doors.
Now it is the Melbourne Storm, the men in purple acrylic, who are doing the gate-crashing. They have become the powerhouse team in a New South Wales and Queensland-dominated sport.
Indeed, 85% of the people playing rugby league live in New South Wales, which has 10 professional teams, and Queensland, which has three. For Melbourne, Victoria's sole professional outfit, to win the Grand Final is akin to the Dallas Stars winning ice hockey's Stanley Cup in 1999. Just as there ain't much snow in Texas, there isn't much rugby league in Victoria.
Still, for all its success, the Melbourne Storm does not enjoy much of a hometown following, which speaks of the dominance of Aussie Rules Football in the country's second city. In 2008, the Storm's average attendance was 12,474, which is miniscule in sports-barmy Melbourne. Still, the NRL lives in hope that Victorians will eventually embrace the game.
At the moment all the Australian winter teams are seeking to expand their geographical footprint. Aussie Rules Football is looking to set up expansion teams in western Sydney and Queensland's Gold Coast. Rugby Union is setting up a franchise in Melbourne, which will compete in an expanded Super 14 competition. The NRL is eyeing up the Central Coast of New South Wales and further sites in Queensland (soccer in Australia, remember, is a mainly summer sport).
This begs a number of questions, both large and small. Are there enough Antipodean animals left for the new teams to be named after? Is the market big enough to absorb this fast-paced level of growth? And, ultimately, will one of the winter codes wither or, even, die?
As the full-house at this weekend's Grand Final showed, rugby league is the most resilient of sports. The phrase 'annus horribilis' does not even begin to describe the nightmare season which the game has had off the field, from sex scandals to alleged corruption scandals, from domestic violence to the kind of behaviour that would make members of even the most uproarious American frat house avert their eyes (the Sydney Roosters forward Nate Myles was suspended for six weeks for defecating in a hotel corridor).
For all that, the on-field product has rarely, if ever, been better. Big hits and great tries, which is what rugby is all about.
Aussie Rules appears to go from strength to strength, and although I missed the Geelong/St Kilda clash in the grand final at the MCG, I heard it was a thriller. Of all the codes, it is the one which can look to expand with the greatest confidence, even if most of its profits still come from Victoria, its fiefdom and home. Remarkably, AFL is the fourth most well-attended sport in the world, with an average attendance of over 38,000. Only American football, cricket's Indian Premier League and the German Bundesliga boast higher average crowds (the English premier league is fifth on the list).
Confessedly, I am a rugby union man, a product of where I was born (Bristol) rather than where I went to school. I cannot ever imagine altering my long-held view that, when played at its highest and most flamboyant level, rugby union is the most entertaining and stirring winter game. But the problem facing rugby union in Australia, as in the rest of the world, is that it is rarely played at the highest and most flamboyant level. It has become a kick-fest rather than a try-fest, which is testing the patience of even its more die-hard fans.
This season's Super 14 was dismal, as was most of the Tri-nations series between Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Experimental laws designed to make the game more expansive and exciting have been ditched in the higher echelons of the game, and the quality of play has suffered as a result. Often this season, I have found myself watching rugby league matches and enjoying them far more than rugby union, which I know from friends and fellow fans is a fairly common experience.
My hunch is that Australia will be able to sustain all three codes at the present highly-professional, highly-sponsored and highly-renumerated level. Others are not so sure. So if one code dies at the professional level, which one will it be?
I'm 
Comments
or to comment.