There was a single name on the snarling lips of all these disparate groups. Chinese billionaire Gui Guojie's passion for Port Adelaide remains undiminished – pictured here with AFL's Gil McLachlan and PM Turnbull Credit:Andrew Meares Malcolm Turnbull. Or Malcolm Bloody Turnbull. Or, on the less-polite streets of the sprawled suburbs, Bloody Malcolm Turnbullshit! Word had taken no time at all to hurtle around the varied aficionados of ball and boot.

"I think as we all know, and I say this as a former mediocre rugby player, AFL is the most exciting football code," the prime minister had declared. To foreigners! In China! Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on his arrival in Shanghai. Credit:Andrew Meares "It's treason," cried Jones to his boys. "The man is not fit to be prime minister. I've been saying it all along! You mark my words, he won't make it to the election. Get me Tony on the other line!" "Remember Gallipoli," hollered one of the mustachioed gents of Brunswick. "We kicked your bottoms right off the peninsula and we'll do it again, Turnbull! Go Fenerbahce." Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull with AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan. Credit:Andrew Meares

"Fffffffff. Brrrrrrrrrrttt," roared the hooker, also known as dummy-half, of one of the more prominent and heavily investigated NRL teams. "Jeez," remarked his teammate, a giant prop known as Bulldozer. "He's swallowed his mouthguard. Give us another beer, will ya, love?" Illustration: Matt Golding In Canberra, senator Glenn Lazarus, known as the Brick With Eyes during his days as a prop forward, was having massive success gathering allies and signatures from north of the Murray River and from MPs who had already been softened up by Frank Lowy. Reporters, alerted at a looming all-out assault on the Prime Minister when he returned, assailed Lazarus with questions.

"What are you gonna do?" demanded one young radio star. "What we always did," said Lazarus. "We'll just pile on and get a boot, a knee and an eye gouge in wherever we can. Maybe a squirrel grip, too." Down at AFL headquarters, Melbourne's most powerful figures gazed contentedly across their city in the full knowledge that all was as is should be with the world, even if it had taken Port Adelaide - Port Adelaide, for pity's sake! - to lead a prime minister to wisdom. A white-faced spokesman for the Prime Minister said Mr Turnbull had been speaking in Mandarin and a careful study of the transcript from Shanghai would show that something had been lost in translation. "Mr Turnbull had never meant to say he was a mediocre rugby player," the spokesman said.

"He would never allow it to be said that he was a mediocre anything. "As to his reference to what appears in the transcript as AFL, the Prime Minister meant this as a compliment to China's original football code, Cuju, which as everyone knows, is the world's oldest and most exciting football game. In certain provinces, translated from the dialect and with the wind blowing in the right direction, it is known as the Ancient Football League, or, as we would say, the AFL. "I hope this explains everything." Follow us on Twitter