Its Friday before NAB in Sydney tomorrow, and NOTHING in SMH on AFL.

[Primmy]

My title says it all. Not even a puff piece is evident. Nothing. Mind you I am talking Internet Newspaper, but that is just as important.

What is going on, and why isn't anything been done about it?

There is a bit in the Telegraph, but why isn't the major newspaper carrying "they are playing out at Blacktown this weekend" as a bit of something. Is this really going to come down to a newspaper trying to kill the game of AFL in Sydney? Am I reading this wrong? Thoughts?

[dimelb]

It'll be in tomorrow's paper. Or else the SMH has a similar view of NAB Cup to Paul Roos.

[Big Al]

My title says it all. Not even a puff piece is evident. Nothing. Mind you I am talking Internet Newspaper, but that is just as important.

What is going on, and why isn't anything been done about it?

There is a bit in the Telegraph, but why isn't the major newspaper carrying "they are playing out at Blacktown this weekend" as a bit of something. Is this really going to come down to a newspaper trying to kill the game of AFL in Sydney? Am I reading this wrong? Thoughts?

The coverage in Sydney of AFL is a million % more than what it used to be compared to the dark days of the Swans in Sydney. This is a Rugby League town so it stands to reasion that it will dominate the headlines and news space. I don't have an issue with this for the simple reason the newspapers are there to make money so they will cater to the biggest audience.

There will be a full page in the Sat herald tomorrow (there always is during the season). Remember Primms this is a glorified trial match so I wouldn't expect saturation coverage anyway. When the season starts you'll have both papers covering teh Swans a lot more intensively than they have in the past.

[blinddog]

It could be worse, it could be the Herald Sun and coverage would be all Collingwood

[Primmy]

But the point I am making is that its GWS and Swans and Gold Coast. The AFL have a goldmine of puff pieces to sell the games, NAB or whatever, to the public. Its no use saying we are flying under the radar. Even some of you lot took to February to renew memberships. How does the AFL and the individual clubs consider they are going to be able to produce positive publicity and club profile while translating that into membership, if there is no publicity at all before a game, a minor game in one context, and an historic set of games in another.

[jono2707]

To me it shows that the Swans have worked bloody hard to develop and keep a loyal following that gets them 25,000 to 30,000 per game, and sometimes more. It also shows that they/we will have to continue to work bloody hard to keep that level of support up. It also shows how difficult its going to be to get any more than token interest going in GWS out there in 'felafel land' (LOL - what a stupid name) and also the potential threat all of that could pose to the Swan's membership base.

It will be interesting to see what sort of media coverage we get during the season proper - it normally isn't to bad so I'm not too concerned at this stage, although I do see tomorrow night as being a historic occasion...

[Cant turn right]

I think if GWS can survive 10 years due to the AFLs pockets being deep enough then ultimately there will be more broadsheet coverage of footy in Sydney. I really think 2 teams will make a lot of difference.

But I think you're right Primmy this Saturday night is a historic occasion, the significance of which has been lost to the mainstream media. Arguably, for footy in Sydney I would think Sydney playing its first game against GWS is the most significant thing since 2005/06.

[giant]

There are a number of articles in my version of today's Herald, including an interview with Mark Seaby on how the new interchange rule will impact rucks.

[Primmy]

Sport News: NRL, Super 15, Cricket, A-League, Wallabies, Socceroos

This is the website sports page in Sydney for SMH. There may be something in hard copy, but the sports page has nothing, unless you are AFLcentric and go looking for it. Open that up and its all Melbourne. The only thing Sydney I saw was in Telegraph.

[CJK]

2 full pages in my Herald today

[ugg]

2 full pages in my Herald today

1 story about the Seaby and the interchange rule, and a very small snippet on an expected sellout tomorrow at BOP.
The rest of the AFL articles are about:
* Whether any club is actually aiming to win the NAB Cup
* Hird's coaching debut
* Saints returning to the field after their off-season dramas

The Seaby article is incredibly similar to ones in the other papers so you're not missing much there. I guess someone (online editor) forgot to publish the Swans story online?

[dimelb]

1 story about the Seaby and the interchange rule, and a very small snippet on an expected sellout tomorrow at BOP.
The rest of the AFL articles are about:
* Whether any club is actually aiming to win the NAB Cup
* Hird's coaching debut
* Saints returning to the field after their off-season dramas

The Seaby article is incredibly similar to ones in the other papers so you're not missing much there. I guess someone (online editor) forgot to publish the Swans story online?

There's some odd discrepancies between hard copy and online versions. Last week's Veszpremi story by Emma Quayle was in The Age hard copy but not Age online; I asked what had happened to it and Fairfax gave me a link to the SMH! For a (now) Melbourne-based player! They need to get their act together.

[CJK]

This just in - Fairfax Digital are a joke.

Next up - 'Water proved to be wet'. The story no parent can afford to miss.

[J_Moore]

I guess someone (online editor) forgot to publish the Swans story online?

The SMH Online Sports editor hates Australian Rules. Is on the record as saying so, and has published opinion pieces to that effect. Even blames the AFL for the poor performance of the Australian cricket team.

Big soccer fan, which is, I suspect, one of the reasonsthe EPL gets a strange amount of front page coverage for an Australian paper's website.

People had a crack at him in the comments section of an article once, and he gave a very defensive reply along the lines of "popularity determines what we run on our website". I don't doubt that's true to a certain extent, but it's very difficult for articles to receive a lot of traffic if they're never linked to online.

Not too much of a worry, really, though. The broadsheet carries a reasonable amount of coverage, usually, and the nature of the internet is that you don't need to go to the website of your city's paper to find out news.

[hammo]

There is a bit in the Telegraph, but why isn't the major newspaper carrying "they are playing out at Blacktown this weekend" as a bit of something. Is this really going to come down to a newspaper trying to kill the game of AFL in Sydney? Am I reading this wrong? Thoughts?

Sorry Primmy, you lost me here