Yes, these things are always dressed up as if they are helping the citizenry – it will benefit the public and boost numbers playing, honest it will – but very rarely are. Why is the LNP giving $15 million to the Swannies? Isn’t the AFL the richest sporting code in the country? What I see is money from the Big End of Town not going to the provinces where it is needed, or suburbia, or the grass roots in general, but rather just being sent down the road a bit to wherever the nearest and most glorious sporting business is making the running. For you see, committing the money to the glory boys captures the immediate headlines and feel-good stories for the fans in a way patient allocation of money for grass roots sporting infrastructure never could. Why, for example, is the LNP giving $15 million to the Swannies? Isn’t the AFL the richest sporting code in the country? Aren’t the Swannies the jewel in their glittering crown? So why does the taxpayer hand over another big cheque? Similar commitments by the Coalition and the ALP have been made to professional rugby league, rugby union, soccer and netball outfits. What I’d love to see is a policy which says the sports businesses are no more deserving of government handouts than the local business that produces park benches, and instead we’ll put our sports money to help sports and sportspeople, starting with kids, that really need government help. No photo ops, but much better policy.

Dud: Can't catch, can't kick. Credit:AAP Swans are gone and Bud's a dud Meantime, the Swans ordinary start to the season, having won just one of their first five games? Don't worry about it. Last time this happened was two years ago, and you’ll be pleased to hear that from the very weekend I publicly wrote them off, they promptly came good to win fourteen of the next sixteen games and made the semi-finals! If you’ll all stand back, I think I might be able to do the same again. Stand back, I say! The Swans are finished. They’re duds, do you hear me? And no one is a bigger dud than Buddy Franklin. He is too old, too fat, too slow, and his magic is gone. I took an old Cortina to the car-dealer the other day, and they offered me Buddy as a trade-in, plus $500, if I would just take him off their hands! I rejected it, of course, preferring the set of steak-knives and as many copies of Clive Palmer’s autobiography as I could carry away. (None, as it turns out, but I digress.)

There. That should do it. We will find out tonight, when they play the Greater Western Sydney Giants at the SCG in the Battle of the Bridge. Road to victory You have to admire the Far North Coast Little League baseball team, who traveled 10 hours on the bus from Lismore to the NSW Little League state titles in North Sydney over the Easter weekend to take on the likes of Newcastle, Central Coast and Illawarra. Coming into the last innings of the final against Illawarra, the lads from FNC were down 1-0 before the last batter blasted them to victory and a ticket to the national titles. Straight after the presentation, the boys jumped onto their bus and travelled the 10 hours home.

Grand moment: But is it time to fly the coop? Credit:AAP Grand vision So the NRL grand final may not be played in Sydney in 2021? So what? Isn’t the idea that it must be played in Sydney a throwback to the days when league was mostly a Sydney game, with Brisbane as the outpost, when of course the grand final was played in the harbour city because nowhere else could generate a crowd?

Clearly, that is no longer the case. With the game firmly established in the four major cities on the eastern seaboard, not to mention NZ, isn’t it obvious that if the NRL has pretensions to being a national and even – no, seriously – international game then what goes with that is having the grand final move around? After all, if you look at the last 21 grand finals, no fewer than sixteen of them boasted non-Sydney teams, and the last all-Sydney affair was between the Rabbitohs and the Bulldogs in 2014. By all means let Sydney remain the base, the launching pad of the game, but if the thing is going to fly long into the 21st Century, the administrators have to let the most climactic match of the lot, the grand final, leave the roost. Spectacle: AFL doesn't obsess over umpiring decisions. Credit:AAP Why Aussie rules rules Last thing, while I am in the mood for telling the AFL and the NRL what’s good for them, despite neither of them (sniff) asking me. For it was an instructive thing on the late afternoon of Anzac Day to flick constantly between the two blockbuster matches, Roosters v Saints and Collingwood v Essendon.

Both were fabulous, with unending action, and the game in the balance right up to the last minutes. But there was one key structural/cultural difference. In the AFL match, it flowed and there was never time for dull dissertation on whether the official had or hadn’t made the right call, because the next bit of action was already upon us. When, on occasion, a call was disputed, discussion went for a maximum of ten seconds, and then moved on. Rugby league and rugby union need to look at this. Neither will ever be as fast-moving as Aussie Rules, but both need to stop obsessing about whether a particular call was right or wrong – as all the action stops, and the seasons change outside our windows – and sort themselves so that the viewer is absorbed by the next action, and not the last one. Just a thought! What they said Phil Gould on what he did after seeing Ivan Cleary shortly after the Penrith supremo made the decision to hit the road: “I gave him a cuddle and a kiss.” That said, it rather sounded like the rugby league version of the climactic scene of Julius Caesar. Instead of “Et tu, Brute?” it was “Outcha Brute!” Knights Nathan Brown on why he’s not a fire and brimstone coach: “Two of our most successful coaches in Wayne Bennett and Jack Gibson never raised their voice. Carlo Ancelotti – one of the greatest soccer coaches of the past 20 years in Europe – treats people like human beings.”

Quiet man: Knights coach Nathan Brown. Credit:ninevms The very clever Craig Hamilton on ABC Grandstand, calling the Knights v Manly game: “Edrick Lee, he’s dropped it cold, like a hot pie.” Wayne Bennett to the media on whether Souths will sign James Roberts to replace Greg Inglis: “It starts with you guys sitting in coffee rooms and thinking ‘what am I going to make up today’. Then you ring me and say ‘have you been talking to so and so’.” Sure, coach. But have you? Steve Edge, the hooker and captain when the Eels won their three premierships from 1981-83, about the new Parramatta stadium: “Best stadium I’ve seen. It’s a bit different to the old Cumberland Oval when we used to run out through the canteen. All you could smell was burning fat. They wouldn’t change the oil they used for the chips for six months.” Dem was da daze! Field of dreams: The new Bankwest Stadium. Credit:NRL Photos

Sports commentator Warwick Hadfield about Parramatta winning in its new stadium: “After two years wandering in the wilderness, Moses – that is Mitchell Moses – led his team to the Promised Land.” Downtown: Damian Lillard sends his match-winner on its way over Paul George. Credit:AP Oklahoma City Thunder player Paul George after trying and failing to stop the amazing twelve-metre-buzzer-beater-game-winning shot by Portland's Damian Lillard to eliminate George’s team from the playoffs: “That's a bad shot. I don't care what anybody says. That's a bad shot. But, hey, he made it. That story won't be told, that it's a bad shot. You live with that.” Bloody hell. I can only imagine what a good shot would look like, Paul? Collingwood’s Brayden Maynard still getting over last year's grand final loss following a contentious free kick that wasn't paid: “I kept seeing it, I kept seeing it, and then I kept thinking about it and thought, ‘shit, maybe it was a free kick, and what would’ve happened if this would’ve happened'. I have replayed that multiple times in my head, if we won what would’ve happened? It was just crazy. Crazy day, crazy night. But I was just so privileged to be able to play in one.” Peter Siddle on returning Warner and Smith: “What they’ve done is done and dusted . . . They weren’t the first people to ball tamper and, I hate to say it, they’re probably not going to be the last. So I don’t think we should keep going on about it.” Perhaps, Peter. But do you accept that the less people go on about it, the more likely it is to happen again?

Preston Campbell on what advice he’d give Greg Inglis: “You spend enough time in anything and whether it's rugby league or whether you're a janitor or banker, you spend enough time in it, you become this person, you have this identity and that's how you identify, and then all of a sudden it stops, and you have to become something else. It takes time. Time can be your friend, but it can be your foe as well.” Carlton’s Michael Gibbons on finally tasting victory this season: “It is such a good feeling. We haven’t been far off it all year. There has been a bit of a media beat-up about it this week, but we’ve been solid internally; we knew we weren’t that far off. To come out and show that, that’s grouse.” Hands up if you have heard the word “grouse” used in that fashion since the late 1970s. As I thought, it as rare as rocking-horse poo! Team of the week Collingwood. Just managed to hold on over a resurgent Essendon side in their annual Anzac Day clash at the MCG. Melbourne Storm. Another week, another extraordinary victory, surging home against the Warriors to finally triumph 13-12.

Ben Simmons. After being trash-talked by the Brooklyn's Jared Dudley – who said the Australian was “average in the half-court" – our bloke exploded for 31 points as the Nets were eliminated from the play-offs. Oh, and Dudley got a very round figure for his own contribution of points – 0, zero, HOLE-IN-THE DONUT. Ash Barty. With the possible exception of Simmons, is there an Australian performing on the global stage better than her right now? Gold: Australia's Fed Cup team, from left, Daria Gavrilova, Sam Stosur, Ash Barty, Priscilla Hon and coach Alicia Molik celebrate Australia's win. Credit:AAP Australia Federation Cup team. Make their first Fed Cup final since 1993, and they have not won it since '74, when Gough was Prime Minister and Evonne Goolagong was in her tennis-playing prime. Shane Long. Southampton player scored the fastest goal in Premier League history as he netted after just 7.69 seconds.

Robbie Fowler. New coach of Brisbane Roar. Twitter: @Peter_Fitz