How the AFL stumbled, rebooted in key grassroots battle

Perth Now

5 days ago

How do you get western Sydney to fall in love with Australian rules football?
It's the question the AFL has been asking since former chief executive Andrew Demetriou laid the groundwork for the GWS Giants in 2005 and headhunted Israel Folau.
Two decades on, they still don't have the exact answer.
But it's not an exact science either, when the region you're working in is a vast sporting battleground.
Western Sydney - by government terms - starts eight kilometres outside of the city's CBD in Canterbury Bankstown and goes as far west as the Blue Mountains, south to the Wollondilly Shire and north to the Hawkesbury.
It's almost 9000 square kilometres of land, with an estimated population of nearly three million.
Rugby league rules. NRL clubs Parramatta, Canterbury, Wests Tigers and Penrith boast rusted-on supporters and local production lines of talent, while rugby union and soccer have long had goal posts in the ground.
The AFL's fight for attention above the Barassi Line has evolved since the Giants' AFL debut in 2012, but arguably never been harder.
Andrew Varasdi, head of AFL NSW/ACT, simplifies the mission to "connecting the game to more people in more ways for more time".
"Falling in love with it ultimately is what we want, what every code wants people to do," Varasdi told AAP.
"You're born with Aussie rules in your blood in Victoria. The number one barrier for us in western Sydney is still that we're a second-choice sport.
"Even as a second-choice sport, we rank between five and seven on that list.
"The number one barrier is absolutely top-of-mind preparedness to actually play the game ... saying 'I'm gonna give it a go'."
The AFL's challenge goes far deeper than rival football codes.
More than 40 per cent of western Sydney's 2.7 million residents are immigrants, according to the most recent census in 2021.
Nearly 80 per cent of residents have at least one parent born overseas. Almost half of the population speak a language other than English at home, and nearly 10 per cent don't speak English at all.
Some locals aren't aware Sherrins exist, let alone how they might go about kicking one. There are also the obvious hurdles created by a cost-of-living crisis.
AFL NSW/ACT is now running camps that don't revolve around football, with Varasdi saying the organisation's Indigenous programs in Blacktown and Campbelltown have a heavy focus on culture.
Other pilot programs will aim to give primary school children a "full AFL experience" from Year 1 to 6, with Varasdi acknowledging the leap from casual introduction to 16-week club program commitment is immense.
"Instead of doing it with short-term programs, we've got to do it with kids at the right time for the right amount of time," he said.
"How do we involve our players from the Giants? How do we use the assets, like games at Engie Stadium? How do we actually engage local clubs, upskill them?
"How do we leverage our theme around our multicultural rounds? All these sorts of things provide not just a great experience in terms of footy, but provide something to the community as well."
Various initiatives have helped the sport's grassroots participation numbers recover since nosediving in the COVID-19 pandemic. Varasdi says there are more than 1000 Auskick participants, with previous years being half of that.
The AFL hopes to grow the number to 5000 children playing in the under-12 category within three to five years.
AFL crowd and broadcast numbers create plenty of code-war headlines, but junior players hold the key to the long-term growth that league HQ and the Giants are so desperate for.
AFL boss Andrew Dillon has highlighted a desire to "turbocharge" participation rates in the region - and notably appointed Tom Harley as his understudy, someone who knows that battle well from stints running AFL NSW/ACT and the Sydney Swans.
Beau Cook, a volunteer at junior club Penrith Giants, says the biggest help for parents has been the 'Play Your Way' program launched during summer.
The voucher scheme - the result of a meeting with 14 local clubs and the AFL executive - provides up to $100 off registration fees, with the biggest discount afforded to those in western Sydney. Almost 1,700 vouchers have been redeemed.
Penrith Giants' Auskick numbers sit around 150, down from when 250 participated pre-pandemic, but the club is up 25 per cent in under-11 registrations.
"I dare say that Play Your Way voucher had a big impact on it," Cook told AAP.
It's the retention of older players that has proved the biggest obstacle for Cook's club and those dotted throughout the region.
The Giants only have two AFL players from western Sydney on their list: ruck Kieren Briggs and first-year Joey Delana.
AFL NSW/ACT has brought back its 'Future Stars' program, where around 50 primary school-aged children are invited to a camp at the Giants in a bid to fast-track elite talent.
"We're at a bit of a loss. Once we figure out the retention piece, I think that would be our next focus," Cook told AAP.
"Our oldest age group is in under 14s, and that's a joint venture between us and three clubs.
"Parents are really busy. A lot of our older age participants, it sort of gets to a clutch point where they are playing two sports.
"Our more elite players, they have to hone in on getting better at a sport. Often, AFL sort of goes a bit to the side."
Dillon, whose meeting with 14 local club presidents last November was well received in the area, is confident the sport has "righted the ship" in the region.
"But I just think we're scratching the surface," Dillon told AAP.
"I've been to a lot of community footy meetings. In western Sydney, it was not dissimilar to meetings I've been to in Victoria - a lot of the challenges are the same, but there are some challenges that are unique to Sydney.
"The volunteers who were in that room, the presidents of the clubs, the others who were there, were as passionate a football community as I've seen anywhere else.
"Wouldn't it be great to come back here in three years' time and have 36 or 54 (local) clubs?"