And let's be honest. Tony Abbott is Tony Abbott. Kevin Rudd, not a sportsman of note, received the treatment when his face appeared on the big screen in the political capital during an NRL game between the Canberra Raiders and the Brisbane Broncos. As a Broncos man - in name, anyway - he was in enemy territory, but he'd already got the raspberry from his fellow Queenslanders at a rugby match between the Sharks and the Reds in his hometown, Brisbane. Three months later his own colleagues gave him the heave-ho from the prime ministership. John Howard became accustomed to the hoot and the heckle at big NRL, AFL and even soccer matches. He simply waved back with a big cheese-eating grin - possibly because he kept kept winning elections, which was his real game. Howard, a cricket tragic, didn't know much about rugby league, but he knew less about AFL. When Tony Lockett kicked his 1300th goal to break Gordon Coventry's record, Howard congratulated him on becoming "the greatest point-scorer of all time".

He was, however, a much bigger sports fan than the then NSW premier Bob Carr, whose staff once persuaded him his popularity would be much improved if he was seen at a footy match. He took his seat in the stands and promptly buried himself in a thick book, said by some to be Tolstoy, by others the near-impenetrable Proust, possibly the epic In Search of Lost Time. Mercifully for Carr, no one seemed to notice he was there, saving him from the full treatment. Julia Gillard, it turned out, was one of those rare leaders who could turn up to a footy match without much criticism, at least overtly. An Adelaide girl via Altona, she had the benefit of actually knowing a bit about AFL and was recognised as a die-hard fan of the Western Bulldogs, battlers who haven't managed a VFL/AFL premiership for more than five decades. Battlers and their followers get respect in footy. Bob Hawke actually got mostly cheers from footy crowds, who seem to appreciate a fellow with a reputation for bedding countless women, who could down a yard glass in the blink of an eye and who was given to sun-baking butt naked by the pool at The Lodge. He once managed to attend both the AFL and NRL grand finals before taking a helicopter out to the big V8 race at Bathurst, where he was mobbed by both Ford and Holden rev-heads. The sporting misadventure for leaders on the make can be spectacular. Paul Keating, in quest of support from the hoi-polloi while in quest of Hawke's bed at The Lodge in the late 1980s, discovered Collingwood had the biggest support base in the AFL.

He persuaded Pies-crazy senator Robert Ray to get him a ticket, loaded a VIP plane with journalists to witness his conversion and flew to Melbourne where Ray's principal job was to undertake the near-hopeless task of explaining the finer points of play and the rules to the treasurer. The journalists proved unreliable. They lampooned Keating's outing mercilessly. He just didn't seem the footy-following type, though Collingwood itself was grateful - Keating's presence at club functions raised a handy $50,000. But even in his native Sydney he'd cocked up marvellously at the footy, declaring once that the rugby league great Steve "Blocker" Roach had "kicked a lot of tries for Balmain". Keating wasn't the forgiving type. Until his excursion to Collingwood, journalists had been able to hitch domestic rides for free on government VIP jets. When the unflattering stories of his less-than-subtle attempt to win the Collingwood army's vote were published, he is said to have ordered Ray - his defence minister - to come up with a formula for charging the media for every future flight. The result was a ticket that cost more than commercial business class, and the charge remains to this day.

Loading Perhaps Rabbitohs and Bulldogs booers and hissers might be wise to check their tax bills after Sunday. Follow us on Twitter