As an outsider to Australian sport, Id always assumed that the battle to the death in the football codes was between rugby league and rugby union. The dance between the National Rugby League (NRL), Australian Football League (AFL) and Super Rugby was secondary to the global battle for supremacy between league and union.

Largely, thats because it works like that pretty much everywhere else in the world: rugby union spent the better part of a century sine die banning anyone who played rugby league, and isnt above skullduggery to this day - just ask Sol Mokdad, the head of UAE Rugby League, who found himself in jail in 2015 at the behest of the local rugby union federation.

They stand in total opposition to each other in outlook, and were literally formed out of a schism pretty much unmatched in sports history.

It surprised me, then, when interviewing former dual code star turned godfather of USA Rugby League David Niu last year, that he had mixed freely between codes while at St George in the 1980s, and that there was little animosity between players, administrators and fans. For context, plenty of Welsh players who made the switch to league at the same time were ostracized from their communities and excluded permanently from union. Was everything I knew wrong?

In Australia in 2021, Id assumed that rugby unions current, seemingly terminal decline had been because the NRL had won out. Unions raison detre since day dot had been social exclusivity and in Australias ruthlessly egalitarian society, it had simply proven unable to keep up. In a world where league was already more popular, the fall into irrelevance beyond those who went to expensive schools was inexorable.

This weekend opened my eyes: its not rugby league thats done it. Its Aussie Rules. On Saturday, I attended my first ever AFL game, taking in the Sydney Swans victory over the Adelaide Crows at the Sydney Cricket Ground. I wont dwell on the game, entertaining as it was, because I still dont really understand the rules, but the crowd was by far the most surprising aspect of it all.

They might have been at Randwick Racecourse, or a nice restaurant in Manly, but instead, they were at the SCG, pastel colors and linen shorts in tow. Its comfortably the poshest crowd Ive ever been in.

Compare this to the night before, when I took in South Sydney Rabbitohs v Sydney Roosters at Stadium Australia. Im not sure Ive ever been at a sporting event where the crowd was so totally mixed: the press box is next to the most expensive seats in the house, but these were still filled with young people, people of color, old school rugby league types and, yes, a fair few corporates too. Russell Crowe was even there, and for all that the guy is a multi-millionaire, Im not sure youd call him posh.

Even a few weeks back at the SCG for the game between the two poshest teams in the NRL, the Roosters and Manly Sea Eagles, the Members Pavilion wasnt as posh as the cheap seats at the Swans. My mate who invited me to the game, an AFL tragic, assures me that this is not the case if you take in a Carlton game in Melbourne. If you were wondering where the NSW Waratahs fans are, go to the Swans.

The Waratahs reported an average attendance of 11,569 in the last fully attended season, 2019. That was down 5,000 on the numbers from 2014. Its down 10,000 on 2010. Its down 20,000 on 2005. Thats an awful lot of people who used to be rugby union fans. Im not sure that theyre now AFL diehards, but the place to go for the well-heeled event goer looking for a day on the beers is now unequivocally the Swans.

Most Super Rugby clubs dont even announce attendance now, which rarely happens because theyve gone up. Perhaps they should go the way of the Newtown Jets and simply announce 8,972, as they have been doing ironically since the 1990s. If the Waratahs keep up like this, 8,972 might be optimistic.

Its worth mentioning that, in Melbourne, the AFL beat rugby union into irrelevance pretty much from the get go. Of the almost 1,000 men to have represented Australia at rugby union, less than 50 are from Victoria. Aussie Rules claim as the game for everyone is, by and large, true, at least in the sense that there are no class divides there as there are in rugby. Rich and poor alike seem to love the AFL, to the detriment of rugby union.

While the great football codes battle might have once seemed like a conflict between league and union, at least in Australia, it is now an entrenchment where the NRL and AFL seem happy enough to sit either side of their respective lines. Theyre both doing, as far as I can see, superbly well for it. Rugby union...less so.