The full-house sign was hung over the fence very early at Bruce Purser Reserve in Sydney's north-west, and the entertainment provided to the 3500 who jammed the suburban venue will go a long way to ensuring those fans take a stronger interest in the game, and the code's push into their territory.

"It's a step in the right direction, it's a seed," said Dale Holmes, general manager of AFL NSW/ACT. "What it means is we are able to now bring out the elite-level players and exhibit the game at an elite level. It also means 3500 people from the local community get to see that and feel like it is theirs because it's in their local area, which is different to perhaps going to a major stadium like ANZ Stadium.

"What we have done is brought the game out to the people and I think that's really important in developing [AFL] areas like the north-west and western Sydney. We are going to need to find ways to do events like this because we do a lot of work at the grass roots but, in reality, you can't grow the game just from a grass roots point of view, you need a concurrent strategy with an elite level presence as well, and that's what this is about.

"We've got a strong participant base out here [in the north-west of Sydney] and the thing that is attractive to us is that it's growing quickly. What you will see here is a new retail shopping centre, new schools, residential development all around us here and this [the venue] is plonked right in the middle of that, so this is a great branding opportunity for our game.

"Those communities which are being built at the moment right through the north-west and south-west corridor of Sydney, all of our research tells us there is a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor and that's why having this facility built and being part of the community infrastructure has been fantastic for us."

Holmes said that despite the global economic crisis, plans remained on target for Sydney to have a second AFL team, based at Blacktown for the 2012 season. He added AFL NSW was working through areas such as corporate support and, like the Gold Coast franchise which arrives in 2011, the club will need to show it can meet the AFL's corporate criteria.

He also said it had closely looked at models of new clubs in other codes, including the Western Force in rugby and football's Central Coast Mariners.

"The thing the Mariners have done really well is the community connect program and how they go about that, and we similarly see that our opportunity is to try and build a connection with the community, which is what tonight is about."

Much has already be made of the battle of the codes to win the west, but Holmes said he doesn't look at it as a competition that has to be won.

"We do our stuff and they do their stuff," he said. "Yes it's a competitive sports market, but what I found about the north-west is there is a lot of choices and if we exhibit our game well, and they have a great night tonight, there's an even bigger chance a lot of the kids that came tonight will continue following our game.

"All we can do is control what we do, I don't see it as us going head-to-head with other sports. It will take some time and there will be plenty of challenges but I think it's going in the right direction."

The AFL's next foray into the west will be the under-16 championships at Blacktown in July, a venue which is likely to host a pre-season NAB Cup game in 2010.