Regardless of their club allegiance, AFL fans across the country tend to share pretty similar views on our great game. or signup to continue reading That is, until it comes to state borders. There's a fundamental difference of mindset between how followers of clubs in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia particularly see various rivalries across the competition.
And it was reinforced again last weekend. It was a bad few days for some big Victorian clubs, as Collingwood lost a nailbiter in Sydney, Essendon lost the unloseable at home to Gold Coast, and Carlton was beaten up by Hawthorn and picked up a swag of injuries. The downturn for those three traditional powers in recent weeks has been quite stunning.
After Round 15, the Blues, Bombers and Magpies were second, third and fourth on the ladder respectively. After last weekend, all three are outside the top eight, with only Carlton any more than a remote chance now of playing finals. As a result, not for the first time, there was a catalogue of social media snark from Perth and Adelaide headed Melbourne's way all about a "Big V disaster", how will those arrogant Vics cope, etc.
, etc. And not for the first time, that betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding of how us Victorians do things. If those dealing out the memes had bothered to check the various footy fan forums around the internet, they would have surely seen the collective yelps of delight from Victorian supporters who almost weekly take great delight in the.