Until fairly recently elite level Australian football meant interstate football. Moreover, it was primarily, indeed almost exclusively, in the interstate arena that football could in any serious way be argued to be a genuinely national sport. Since the transmutation of the VFL into the AFL, however, the overwhelming majority of Australia's elite footballers have participated in a single, national (or near-national) club competition, and the importance of senior interstate footy has diminished. Nevertheless, its overall significance in terms of the sport's development - and, indeed, arguably its very survival - cannot be over-stressed.
