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Watts Online

By David Watts

You can never have too much footy.  And the World Wide Web feeds us to bursting point. This is a good thing too. It means we can go from the feast of cricket sites to the banquet of Australian Rules ones without skipping a meal.

It only seems like yesterday -- indeed it almost was -- that *CricInfo* was collecting all my hits. It had ball-by-ball coverage one weekend of the second Test between Australia and India, the Sheffield Shield final between WA and Tasmania, the final England-West Indies Test, Pakistan v Zimbabwe and South Africa against Sri Lanka.

But as the AFL season proper bounced off, CricInfo, and the bad vibes sent out as wristy Indian batsmen hammered our "world champions", was deserted in favour of a new -- and hopefully sweeter -- ball game.

First stop for any footy follower should be the official *AFL page*. Last year's ponderous site has been revamped hugely now that the AFL has hopped into bed with Channel 7 and News Limited as Net partners.

Someone has done their homework because the site is fast, has lots of up-to-date news -- rather than official league press releases -- and video footage of the highlights of every round in 1997 (this will be added to as this season fires up). It also offers free membership with the promise of e-mail news and results tailored to your choice of club.

A further highlight are the live scoreboards on match days which not only offer constant score updates, but access to all the team and individual stats as well.

You don't have to tie yourself down to official sites to appreciate the inroads footy has made into the Web, however. The *Footy Links* page promises 274 sites on tap. This collection of official and unofficial pages was called 160 Footy Links only a year ago.

The growing number of Web-savvy fans who have created HTML shrines to their clubs and heroes might find the *AFL Web Ring Homepage* the perfect place to hawk their talents. Membership of the ring allows the author to place his or her site among a growing army of AFL-related ones -- 90 at last count. Each site carries a Web Ring link, which allows surfers to visit either the next site in the ring, skip five sites to the next one, or to call for a random site.

The *list of AFL Web Ring sites* reveals there is a great variety of choice. You might fancy Port Adelaide, so there is Adrian's Port Power Page to visit; or you might have a fascination for the Osborne Park Junior Football Club . . . it's there too. Then again you might be a very traditional North Melbourne supporter and opt for the Shinboners' Hall of Fame.

If you are so inclined, you can even enter online tipping competitions. One set up less than a fortnight ago is run by the Statewest Credit Society in WA and is called *Fingertip Footy*. It is a sophisticated site that obviously wants to draw attention to its creators and find new society members, but does not go for the hard sell, thus allowing tipsters to indulge in some free fun.

Other free tipping contests like *The Big Tip* and *My Footy* are not hard to find. And if you just want to whinge about the umpiring or vent your frustrations about the coaching, check out the newsgroup *rec.sport.football.australian*. It's just like a pub after the game -- only drier.