HAHAHA! Me posting here demonstrates fear?! The fact that some goon started a thread bagging out Sean Fagan is evidence enough to suggest that a lot of AFL fans are also "fearful". It also supports my claim that everyone in AFL, from the fans, right through the media up to administration are the most insular, easily offended bunch of girls with sand in their vaginas to ever walk the earth. The minute anyone says anything negative about the game or doesn't give it the kudos the fans feel it deserves, or promotes anything that is in opposition to them they spit the dummy. 2 excellent points spring to mind
* In 2008 the City of Melbourne put up banners near AFL house to promote the rugby league world cup game between the Kangaroos and England and the AFL made them take it down.
*Some months ago the AFL complained that the ARL Development Foundation had set up a junior sign up day in Blacktown a matter of kilometres from their stadium. Western Sydney is and always has been rugby league territory. The fact that the AFL are coming to the area with a warchest to try and win the area over is pretty amusing when they want to complain about the ARL doing what they would normally be doing regardless of an AFL presence; encouraging local kids to play the code most familiar to locals in the area. The AFL have all the legwork to do.
As for the media; again see my point about Offsiders, Caro and Borubon Bec Wilson, Damian Barrett, Patrick Smith et al. Whenever something blows up in rugby league that mob are all over it and are so quick to compare AFL and RL culture, policy etc so forth. Rugby league is a rival code which has minimal chance of ever really dominating southern/western markets but the reality is that it offers so much more than just a club competition which is really all the AFL has to hang it's hat on. Origin, City Country, International football, The Dreamtime Game and The World Club Challenge are all mainstays of rugby league. Again, despite being minimal or zero threat AFL scribes are ready to jump on board and give it to rugby league over just about anything with Origin III 2009 being the best example. AFL can only dream about offering up a spectacle that matches state of Origin rugby league so they bag it out because 2 big men of equal size and ability had a set to. Even Vlad Demitrispew weighed into it with "oh, we don't have that in our game". Yeah sure... but you do have it in that lame International Rules series where you ARE allowed to dish out cheap shots to poor Irish amateurs who have to go back to work when they get home from tour. I didn't hear anyone complaining about "thuggery" then.
Further to the protective "secret society" that is the AFL media; how about the poor girl who Brendan Fevola allegedly behaved inappropriately towards at the Brownlow last year. Wasn't she hesitant to make a complaint because she's afraid of how she's be viewed and it might hurt her career?
And here, my friend is the biggest example of just how truely insular the AFL community are.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/get-your-hands-off-our-name/story-e6frf9if-1225846164142
Add to that the fact that you have coppers bullying each other over dropping a rape charge against Saints players and I think it just goes to show how protective the AFL fraternity really are about looking after each other.
So in short, you're a deadset hypocrite for pointing the finger at rugby league and calling us "xenophobic" etc so forth. The AFL cheersquad are just as bad if not worse!