AUSTRALIAN RULES GRAND FINAL: RUPERT BATES,in Melbourne, on the hype and hoopla as Victorian rivals prepared for the annual battle for the biggest prize in Australian domestic sport

THERE WAS a minor earthquake on the Mornington Peninsula outside Melbourne last week. The bad news was a couple of properties were slightly damaged. The good news for St Kilda supporters was Nick Riewoldt’s dodgy knee was not affected.

There is no point in Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd urging Barack Obama to lead the world on economic reform. For “One week in September” nobody in Australia is listening to anything except beloved Footy. It was all about the countdown to today’s AFL Grand Final in front of 100,000 supporters at the MCG in Melbourne, with the Premiership the biggest prize in Australian domestic sport.

Melbourne team St Kilda, captained by hero forward Riewoldt, are in search of their first Flag since their only triumph in 1966. Their opponents, Geelong Cats, the city across the bay from Melbourne and the gateway to the Great Ocean Road, are seeking all-time greatness in their third successive final, after winning the Premiership in 2007, only to lose their title to Hawthorn last year.

It has been a Victorian love-in this season, with interstate rivals such as Brisbane Lions, Adelaide Crows and Sydney Swans failing to make the last four. New South Wales and Queensland will claim too much fuss is made of footy, but in the ladder of sporting obsessives, Aussie Rules fans are right up there.

The final leads the news bulletins and is on front and back pages. If Kylie Minogue announced her engagement to Skippy the bush kangaroo during a dinner party at Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine lair, the papers would still stick Geelong top cat Gary Ablett jnr on the front page.

Ablett, son of Gary snr, one of the greatest players of all time, won the Brownlow Medal last Monday, the game’s highest individual honour. The medal count is broadcast live on national television for four hours, with players in tuxedos swigging beer and their Wags out in flash frock force, with enough chests on display to pin any number of medals on.

Carlton forward Brendan Fevola, the Coleman medallist as top goalscorer this season, was at it again on Brownlow night. (“Fev” was sent home in disgrace from Galway three years ago during the International Rules Series for a drunken bar brawl.)

Working as a television presenter last Monday, Fevola was spilling beer, vomiting and drunkenly interviewing players, landing him a fine and a front page headline that read: “You need help Fev”.

Ireland, unlike the rest of the world, understands the game. When Irish band The Script played live in Melbourne on Thursday night during television’s The Footy Show, Danny O’Donoghue talked of Gaelic football’s similarity to AFL, although next month’s Ireland/Australia series has been postponed.

Last week the Australian papers highlighted the achievement of Tadhg Kennelly when the former Sydney Swans star became the first player to land an AFL Premiership and All-Ireland double after Kerry’s victory at Croke Park. Swans coach Paul Roos was in the Dublin crowd to watch Kennelly, but did not attempt to entice the Irishman back to Sydney, where he played a pivotal role in the Swans’ 2005 Grand Final win.

Another guest on the irreverent Footy Show was Shane Warne, who would happily hand back, oh, about 708 Test wickets to see his beloved St Kilda win the Premiership. Warne was a promising junior player with the Saints, until what Australians call his awning over the toy factory – a beer belly – grew too big.

In the Grand Final countdown the media dusts off golden oldies from AFL history, stirring them from their slumbers on farm porches to remember the good old footy days when men were men and shorts were tighter.

So you get in the car and head for the Great Ocean Road for a break from the myth and mayhem. But no, the radio is full of phone-ins.

“Mate, Riewoldt may look like a Viking but he won’t get to pillage piss on Saturday.”

Piss is their quaint word for beer.

In Australia, you barrack for your team, you don’t root for them. Root means something entirely different, as in the act Fevola simulated during his drunken Brownlow Medal antics.

Riewoldt and Ablett are the poster boys of the final – literally, with papers giving away huge posters of the stars. Eavesdrop on the grannies in the coffee shops of St Kilda and even they are comparing marks inside 50 and disposal efficiencies.

Yesterday thousands of supporters lined Melbourne for the Grand Final parade, with the players driven through the streets in the pouring rain.

Today started with Grand Final breakfasts, followed by pies, punts and pots of piss at family barbecues and every pub in Victoria. Goodness knows what state Victoria will be in come Sunday morning.

“One week in September” is seven days that shake a state more than any seismic shift and defines a nation’s sporting obsession.