Is Brisbane big enough for both codes? AFL’s Lions stare down challenge from NRL

T he ‘Battle of Brisbane’ on Friday night has the NRL buzzing, but on the south side of the river in the Queensland capital, the Lions have a fight on two fronts to consider in the AFL. Brisbane’s clash against Melbourne at the Gabba, scheduled at the same time as the meeting between the unbeaten Broncos and Dolphins at Suncorp Stadium, serves as an early-season barometer.

After a disappointing 54-point loss to the Power in Adelaide last week, the clash with Melbourne is an important challenge for a side considered a premiership contender. It is relatively rare in the AFL for teams that drop their first two matches to play in the finals, though Brisbane is among recent exceptions, having done so in 2001.

But the fixture clash with the NRL is also a test for the AFL, which has discussed with pride in the past month the foothold it is establishing in the northern state. At the season launch at the Malthouse theatre early in March, AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan declared the code was on the verge of becoming the biggest in Queensland.

Stating the AFL’s goal for every house and school to have a football, McLachlan said “we know we need [to build] an oval a week, every week, to cater for that growth” of Australian rules football in the sunshine state. We are seeing [participation] numbers lifting above pre-Covid levels, particularly in Queensland where AFL, within a year or two, is on the brink of being the biggest code in the state,” McLachlan said. “[That is] something unthinkable a decade ago.”

McLachlan’s proclamation, delivered at a venue for thespians, may sound theatrical but the raw numbers show there is nothing ostentatious about the claim. There were more than 55,000 registered AFL participants at grass