It's not the 1970s, though. My old man grew up in the 50s and 'back in myyy dayyy' you played footy in Winter and cricket in Summer. Girls played netball and there was a bit of field hockey and tennis. Basketball? Soccer? Maybe if you'd been stationed in the Pacific with some US soldiers or just arrived on a boat from Greece.
These days junior participation in soccer outstrips Australian rules 2:1. Footy is about on par with netball and basketball. Auskick is about the only thing the AFL does right in getting kids into playing the game and it not costing parents a fortune. FFA have totally dropped the ball on this and junior rego fees for soccer are high. Rugby union is just played by private school kids as it always has been and rugby league will end up only being played by islanders and kids big for their age group.
Where junior sports has gone wrong is the ******** not keeping score everyone is a winner nonsense. I remember playing school footy when I was about 7 or 8 years old on a muddy oval and there was a winner and a loser. Didn't stop us wanting to play.
No issue with any of that, junior footy in the 70's was auskick today. Just junior footy. The AFL have not come up with some magic idea here.
And they are still not producing any more talent than they did back then.