Ram it: Why do we fawn over NFL when our own football codes have it all?

September 12, 2026 — 5:00am

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

Look, just as Australia has to suffer the annual cultural cringe about how staggering it is that rugby league teams get to play in Las Vegas because, you know, Vegas is so glittering and our cities are all so grey and maudlin, this carry-on about the NFL being in Melbourne is just embarrassing.

Might I, for a moment, set the record straight?

Australian rules, rugby league and rugby union are much better games than American football, both to play and to watch.

The American pundit George F. Will captured it perfectly: “Football combines two of the worst things in American life: violence punctuated by committee meetings.”

In our games, any bastard can score, any bastard can be the hero of match. In their game, it is pretty much only the quarterback, the running back or one of the receivers that gets to be the regular hero.

In our games, every player has agency. In their game, you are being moved around in a match of human chess, with the coach calling the shots.

In our games, you don’t need heaps of heavy equipment and carry-on, but can get a match going with a free field and the right shaped ball. In their game, you have to be part of the sporting industrial complex to even get to first base.

In our game, concussion is unfortunate collateral damage. In their game – and I played it for a season in Ohio in the late 70s – your head never quite stops buzzing in both training and games from the endless clashing of helmets.

Singing, cheering and an American takeover: Why the NFL’s MCG experiment was a smash hit

It’s fine that the NFL is here for a visit as a cultural curiosity. But the game should never take hold here. Our games are better!

Rah! 23 years ago, your humble correspondent recounted the story of how, over North Sydney way, “Somebody most likely a small child in a red-and-black beanie, or possibly a league forward on his way home from pre-season training scrawled in wet concrete on the footpath bordering Willoughby Road at Crows Nest, ‘GO THE BERS’.

“TFF reader Scott Mclean always thought this summed up the Bears nicely: local support; optimism as another season began; and ultimately, close but no cigar.

“Sadly, oh so sadly, North Sydney council has recently redone the footpath and the graffiti, like the Bears themselves, has disappeared.

“Now, as the nights grow cold, and we grow old, all that is left is us we few, we dwindling few, who remember. The mighty Bers are gon.”

As we know, they are coming back next season. And as it happens, you’ll find the opening game of the entire 2027 schedule will be between two foundation clubs from 1908 – the Rabbitohs and ... the BEARS!

It will be played at the Bears’ new home base........

© Brisbane Times