Reality bites. These Collingwood trips to the West are a good idea for promotion of the game but also brings home to the Vics what a difficult task the AFL has in developing the game in the Western suburbs. IMO people like Eddie and co have previously had no concept of the difficulties that the Swans have had in establishing the club and code in Sydney. Salary cap allowances and draft concessions have been attacked without any real analysis of the potential benefits of developing the game in the long term. Maybe, a different attitude could result from these trips if the comments by Buckley re the Swans success are to be taken as a guide
Magpies skipper spreads word
By Damien Barrett
February 6, 2004
IT would be impossible for Nathan Buckley to walk into a school in Victoria and be greeted with a "who are you?"
Yesterday in some of Sydney's primary schools, he was hit with the question dozens of times.
Collingwood players have visited more than 30 schools in the area since arriving in Sydney on Tuesday as part of the series of AFL community camps.
"It's different," he said. "Young kids - not many knew who I was. A lot of them don't even know what Aussie rules is.
"It's amazing to us, but it doesn't surprise me. It is the tradition and what they are used to. The generation teaching them or the generation that is parenting them have been here so long, even before football was in Sydney and that is what you are battling against.
"You get another generation ahead, and with football already being here for 30, 40 years, then there will be a bit more interest in it and knowledge of it." Buckley and nine teammates, as well as Magpies coach Mick Malthouse, addressed more than 200 coaches, umpires and players at an AFLNSW-organised football forum at Telstra Stadium on Wednesday night.
The team relaxed at Manly Beach yesterday afternoon.
Though his identity and choice of football code remained a mystery for most of the schoolkids yesterday, Buckley said he detected an improvement - albeit slight - in AFL recognition levels between this trip and the corresponding camp last year.
"More kids know about AFL this year than they did last year and the only factor I can put that down to is the Swans' success," the skipper said.
"Auskick has made inroads into schools. The better the Swans do the more Sydney people will take notice. It's a bit like the Storm in Melbourne. I know I was paying a lot more attention to them when they won the grand final."
http://foxsports.news.com.au/story/0...-23211,00.html
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