Rugby league and Australian rules are always at each other trying to claim the mantle of the better sport.
As someone who has played both, I can't figure what they're on about.
They both have their merits.
But there are a few things the AFL does way, way better than the NRL.
Read more Try Hard blogs They still let the kiddies onto the field after the game. In several trips to Melbourne to visit friends, I was pleasantly surprised to find people brought footies along to the game and ran onto the ground to kick goals at full-time.
I can now claim to have kicked a goal on both the MCG and Optus Oval. Sure, it wasn't during a game but I think it's still cool.
And it used to be cool when you could run onto a league ground after the hooter.
Kids would huddle at the fences near the corner posts, eager to be the first on the field to grab one of those black and white striped cardboard tubes (much to my childhood dismay, I was never fast enough to get one).
Once on the field, they would try and take shots at goal using the mounds of sand left behind by their team's kickers or start impromptu games of footy.
I don't know why the NRL nixed it - probably something to do with public liability insurance. But if the AFL can do it, surely we can too.
Something else we can do is play the grand final at the proper time of the day - in daylight.
The AFL plays their big game at the right time - the afternoon, while the NRL persists with the lame night-time GF.
I'm not sure if the AFL has any pressure from advertisers and TV networks to move the grand final to the evening.
If they have, then they're to be applauded for resisting.
If they haven't, then kudos to the advertisers and TV networks for realising an afternoon grand final is the way to go.
The NRL, on the other hand, moved their big game from the afternoon to a 7.30pm kick-off.
That killed off the long-time tradition of the grand-final day barbecue and meant young kids - the future customers of the NRL - had to go to bed before the match finished.
There was a groundswell from the fans to revert to a daytime grand final a few years back, while the advertisers and TV networks wanted it to stay where it was.
In their esteemed wisdom, the NRL moved the game to 5pm - and pleased neither side.
And this, unfortunately, is where it will stay. Because money trumps fans every day of the week.
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