Melbourne's 30,000-seater Rectangular Stadium or AAMI Park will play host to the Melbourne Rebels and is already the home of rugby league side Melbourne Storm and football sides Melbourne Victory and Melbourne Heart © Getty Images

An interesting piece offered by NZPA this week highlighted rugby union's apparent falling popularity if Australia and more alarmingly - the task facing the Melbourne Rebels if they are to buck that trend ahead of their Super Rugby bow in 2011.

Australia announced themselves as Tri-Nations contenders with an impressive victory over South Africa in Brisbane on Saturday but you wouldn't believe it if you were reading Melbourne's major weekend tabloid, the Sunday Herald Sun. The timing of the clash in Brisbane on Saturday night may have not helped their bid to hit the headlines in the following day's papers but somehow you don't think that would have made a difference - such is the city's infatuation with the Australian Football League (AFL).

"Of the 26 pages devoted to sport, 20 were brimming with stories about the latest round of the AFL," reported NZPA. "The Wallabies' 30-13 victory warranted 15 paragraphs on page 21; all up there were 36 stories concerning AFL plus a myriad of photographs and graphics.

"Australia's three-wicket loss to Pakistan at Headingly was also relegated, perhaps not surprisingly. Meanwhile, the Herald Sun's news section boasted 10-more AFL-related yarns, including a double-page spread detailing the players' "off-field party haunts".

"Melbourne's sporting obsession also attracts blanket coverage on television -- there are at least five shows on free-to-air, the same again on cable.

"The All Blacks used the sports mad city as their base during the 2003 World Cup to escape the hype of Sydney, so some of the older players already know their place in the pecking order. And as a reminder, the traditional captain's run at the test venue on Friday is unlikely to take place because Etihad Stadium is being prepared for the Essendon v St Kilda blockbuster later that night."

Rebels officials were no doubt always aware that they would face a battle to find a following in the city and the scheduling of the new-look Super 15 - a late February start and early August finish - will see it go head-to-head with the AFL. Add in the effort required to recruit a squad capable of holding their own on the Super Rugby stage and the Melbourne Storm salary-cap controversy that dragged in the now-departed Rebels chief executive Brian Waldron earlier this year and it is clear the side have some major hurdles to cross before they even take to the field.

Only time will tell if they can get anywhere near to attracting a large following to their 30,000-seater home at AAMI Park with half that figure a more realistic number. According to reports the Sydney-based Waratahs were the most popular Australian Super 14 franchise in terms of attendances (24, 204 average) with the Reds (22,815), Western Force (17,020) and Brumbies (15,256) lagging behind. The same figures list the Stormers as the most popular side (42,382) with the Bulls (34,290) and Sharks (25, 333) in second and third.