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Imagine it's the middle of winter.

Walk into any Sydney pub or club sporting two or more TVs on a Saturday night. One will be tuned to the Rugby League. Invariably, any others will be showing any sport other than the AFL.

I'm constantly amazed that the punters would prefer to watch a marbles tournament rather that the indigenous football code, but that's the reality in Sydney. This city of five million can comfortably support one AFL team, but after two decades, the sport is still a curiosity to the majority of Sydney residents.

Support for a particular sporting code is a cultural phenomenon, one which propagates primarily from parent to child. Support for the Swans is growing slowly as the original supporters, ones like myself who gained their interest through some interstate connection, transfer that interest to their kids.

It's a slow process, but over 20 years the Swans may have gained enough rusted on fans to survive the immanent and inevitable form slump.

There's no way the city can support two mediocre teams.

The AFL hierarchy are dead wrong if they think that a second team can be introduced in Western Sydney within five years. Perhaps they'll avoid the mistakes made when the Swans relocated, but however they do it, they'll still be competing with the established Swans franchise for that rare Sydney commodity ... the committed AFL supporter.

Starting next year's Rugby League grand final at 5.00pm is one of those dumb compromise decisions that will please no one.

Rather, the ARL should have either stuck with the status quo, or reverted to the 3.00pm kick-off.

I doubt the players, fans, sponsors or TV audience will be enamoured with a final that starts in daylight and ends in near darkness.

Update: What did I tell you?

Update: It's been pointed out to me that those who follow the county's premier football code really couldn't give a rats!

Q. What's a Victorian footy fan's fantasy?

A. Chris Judd in a Victorian jersey.

Or so it seems, as this scenario recently came up several times in the media on the subject of the possible resurrection of AFL State of Origin games. (Feel free to suggest others. There's lots!)

I've only been to one State game and it certainly wasn't State of Origin. It was NSW vs Vic at the SCG in the late 1980s. To bolster the home team, the AFL allowed any player who'd ever played for the Swans to participate. It was memorable for several reasons. The whole game was played in a torrential downpour. The four Daniher brothers competed. NSW won. From memory, Ted Whitten (there as head of the Vic selectors) was heckled from the member's stand and was in tears! Memories ...

My late father, being Western Australian, liked the old State competition. In the days of the VFL, state games were the only time that WA (and SA) fans could watch home grown talent that usually competed in far away Victoria. State games were the pinnacle of a competition that lacked an international dimension.

The advent of the AFL saw the concept wither. Interstate fans can now watch their compatriots at their home grounds. The clubs weren't keen. The last attempt was in 1999.

Now the AFL is now talking about bringing them back. I suppose they'd like to have something that approaches the ARL version, but they'd have to invent a way to make players want to participate. Rugby League doesn't have that problem as players aren't likely to qualify for internationals without being first being selected for SoO. Historically, there's been no similar incentive for AFL players to risk injury and their club's chances at a flag.

To be successful, the AFL will have to persuade (read 'coerce') players to participate. Perhaps make SoO participation a pre-requisite for playing the Irish* in the International Rules hybrid game, or perhaps to be eligible for a Brownlow, or even AFL All Australian selection.

I like to see them back as a one week, mid season event, but only if the best players play. Otherwise, the regular 'home and away' will do nicely.

*If they ever talk to each other again!

But I wouldn't be too pleased if I lived in Melbourne.

The AFL has been determined to get all games televised in NSW and Queensland, particularly on Friday nights after Channel Nine duped them last time round. So determined, in fact, that one of the conditions of the new broadcasting rights agreement was that all games played would be televised, near live, in the 'non football' states.

Of course, Seven and Ten had no intent of showing all games on their channels, and probably signed up thinking that Fox would gladly take up the slack. But Fox, knowing that the free to air networks would have trouble offloading the games to other networks, and that the AFL could veto any deal that wasn't to their satisfaction, played tough.

And It paid off, as Fox ended up with a game that used to be shown 'free to air' in Melbourne.

If I were a Victorian footy fan, I'd be spewing!

For this AFL fan in Sydney, it's not ideal. All I was really hoping for was a delayed telecast of the Friday night game on 'free to air' at a reasonable hour. Say, starting at 9.30pm. But, as it happens, nothing's going to change. Friday night games that don't involve the Swans will be replayed on Seven or Ten at 11.30pm, just like they were on Nine last year.

What is good, though, and unlike last year, is that the Friday night game will be live on Fox. Looks like this Foxless footyfan will be spending Friday nights at the local or wearing out his welcome with Fox equipped friends.

Anyone with an interest in AFL footy knows knows channels Seven and Ten have a problem with their new five year agreement to broadcast all eight weekend games into Sydney and Brisbane. Quite simply, the free to air channels in the rugby dominated eastern states won't be able to absorb that many AFL games.

It seems the broadcasters thought Foxtel would stump up some (well, a lot, actually) cash to televise four of the games, but Fox wouldn't accept the asking price. So the "free to airs" are now committed to telecast the code at peak viewing times into eastern cities that have little interest in the seven games that aren't featuring the local team.

(Note: As an AFL tragic, I'm an exception to the above generalisation.)

Solutions are being sort by the broadcasters to relieve themselves of their obligation, including showing the matches on little watched community TV stations. But there's an easy to implement, "available right now" solution to their problem, and it's only government regulation that's standing in the way.

It's called digital multi-channelling.

Every free to air broadcaster has enough bandwidth to simultaneously broadcast at least two digital channels simultaneously. The ABC and SBS are already doing this. It only takes an inexpensive set top box to allow a standard analogue TV to show the additional channels.

As I understand it, the commercial broadcasters fought against multi-channelling, and the government, ever mindful not to upset media barrons, agreed to disallow the service. It's ironic that the system they fought against could offer a solution to their AFL rights dilemma.

Digital TV has a low take up rate, unsurprisingly when one considers that there's no real advantage in acquiring the technology. High definition is hardly a "must have," and the lame programming on the ABC's and SBS's second channels hardly makes the effort worthwhile.

Perhaps the AFL and Seven / Ten should get together and try to get the restrictions on multi-channelling lifted.

If they were successful, I'd be racing to buy a digital set top box the next day.

The Sty's been on a bit of a break, during which time I was lucky enough to attend the AFL Grand Final in Melbourne. It's history now, but my team, the Sydney Swans, fell short of the mark by one point, in a game that was equal to any of the classic finals.

The Swans should have lost to the West Coast Eagles by 10 goals, but to their credit, fought back in the second half to lose by that narrowest margin.

The team's key forward, Barry Hall, had a dirty day, and judging by his body language, knew it. But he should console himself with the thought that the team almost won an unlikely victory, against the club that is the bench mark of the current competition.

There's always next year, Baz!

My favourite team of all time, the Sydney Swans, is poised to defend their hard won premiership of last year.

I'm loath to discuss their chances. They may be favourites to defeat the Dockers and proceed to the MCG the following Saturday, but finals footy history is littered with fancied teams that didn't make it. Suffice to say that I'll be at the Olympic Stadium on Friday night to lend them a hand.

It's the penalty shootout.

My daughter's rep soccer team lost the chance to play in the grand final due to this farcical method of deciding a draw. This is despite dominating the opposing team.

Is it so difficult to invent a means of deciding a draw that involves the team playing as a team?

Peter Brock, the second prominent Australian to die in the space of a week, was not an international celebrity like the first, but arguably influenced a lot more Australians.

For me, it was during my teens and due to an unhealthy interest in cars. Production car racing was big, it was your Dad's car (sort of) being flogged round the track, and (chances were) Brock was driving it.

The 1970s were the golden age of production car racing, with the 'Bathurst 500' race (later '1000') the pinnacle of the season. In those days, production cars were simply taken off the street, rebuilt to the manufacturers specifications, fitted with a roll cage and full harness seat belts, and let loose on the racing circuit. It took a lot of skill to drive one quickly.

Sunday of the October long weekend was invariably spent watching Bathurst race. The undisputed champion was Peter Brock. I was never a great fan, my father didn't drive a Holden, but anyone who took more than a passing interest in the sport acknowledge he the best there was.

Brock had his idiosyncrasies, promoting pseudo-science performance devices at one stage, but he had a strong commitment to road safety. One aspect of this was to emblazon his car with the number '05,' rather than the champion's number '1.' It was his own personal campaign to have the prescribed alcohol limit for driving lowered from 0.08% to 0.05%.

It appears that Brock's unwillingness to retire from the sport was his undoing. There's not many active racing drivers in their sixties. In the absence of any mechanical failure of the car, it seems his skills failed him.

He refused to grow old gracefully, and paid the price, but he'll always be remembered as one of the greats of Australian motor sport.

I was going to write this last week, being in Dubbo for the state primary school girls' soccer championships, after 'Twin One' qualified for the second year running. A dodgy dial up connection and a 12 year old who thought I'd brought a laptop purely for her to chat on MSN put paid to that.

The result between Australia and Italy is now history and the result's been well worked over by the media. Leaving aside the question of whether the penalty should have been awarded, the big question of what effect the the World Cup is going to have on the game now that the country has has finally taken notice of it. My guess is, in the short term, not a lot.

The 'A League' should continue to do well while it's held in summer, and the teams should find it easier to attract sponsorship, hopefully to the point where they become solvent. However, the problem of the better players moving off shore will remain and prevent the competition from becoming world class.

We'll have to wait and see if the internationals within the Asian group attract the same level of interest, and whether the elite players will want / be able to leave their European clubs to participate.

I don't think the amateur participation levels for the sport will change that much, despite the recent spike in participation. After all, it's already the most popular amateur football code by a country mile, and the 'soccer mums' aren't going to disappear.

Diehard supporters of the sport should be happy if the net effect of Australia's WC adventure boils down to the education the average punter. It won't change his lifetime sporting allegiances, but at least he won't completely ignore the game as he did in the past.