A tale of two footies Geelong's Mathew Stokes handballs to Steven Motlop as he is tackled by Bomber Ben Howlett. The Geelong-Essendon game last weekend was footy at its best. The game began with a Harry Taylor mark where Harry left the perpendicular to mark in his familiar upright fashion while lying on his side a metre or so above the ground. He was sort of levitating laterally. You have to love Harry as a player - his gentlemanly demeanour, his unyielding valour. If they fight World War 1 again, Harry will find himself on the recruiting posters. Then the ball cut through the middle and Jobe Watson, Essendon's champion, met it. Watson is outstanding at finding the ball and disposing of it in a confusion of bodies. He found the ball in his usual deft manner but, before he could handpass it, Geelong's Steve Johnson had grabbed his arm. It was like seeing a pickpocket have his pocket picked. Then Steven Motlop made his run. Pindar, the Greek poet, was writing odes to sportsmen 2500 years ago. Nothing's changed. If you have a vaguely literary bent and this sort of human activity excites you, there are times when it's going to make your tongue run wild. Motlop's run was one of them. Motlop is not a big man, but he's not exactly small either. He's a fraction too muscular to be described as slight. He may also be one of the most outrageously skilful players playing. Motlop delivers banana kicks on the run, bending the ball into the path of moving teammates. Against Essendon, Motlop ran the ball from deep in Geelong's defensive half and noone could touch him. He broke line after line until, thwarted in an attempt to pass the ball, he realised he was actually within range of goal and might as well have a shot. He missed, which took some gloss off the moment, but for what was a significant period it seemed like there was nothing young Steven Motlop could not do on the football field. Motlop is becoming a player to watch in one of the teams - if not the team - to watch. Yes, if I was to base my view of the game on the Cats, I might get carried away and say it's better than ever. But it's not and that's where I've changed - I don't get lost in the footy like I used to. Charles Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities begins, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." The AFL is becoming a tale of two competitions. A Tale of Two Cities is about a revolution. The game, if not in a revolution, is in a period of rapid and alarming change, not least from the challenge posed by so-called 'supplements'. The start of A Tale of Two Cities goes on, "it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity ..." The 'supplements' saga has been nothing if not an epoch and belief and incredulity. Then there is the issue of the AFL's expansion. Last weekend, GWS played before a crowd of 5000 and Kevin Sheedy made his unfortunate remark about the Department of Immigration working for the Western Sydney Wanderers, thereby opening him up to attacks that wrongly suggested he was racist. What he was doing, I think, was telling people in Melbourne that GWS is not operating in a cultural desert. Many of the people in western Sydney may be newcomers to Australia, but this does not mean they are arriving without a game of their own. That is the fact of the matter and there is no denying the GWS experiment stands in obvious contrast to the phenomenal success that A-League soccer team, the Western Sydney Warriors, had in their inaugural season both on the field and in capturing the imagination of the locals. The AFL is playing a game which, in sporting terms, is of historical consequence; at this stage, as I read the omens, they're mixed. Add to this the view that six teams are out of the finals race already. If correct, that means six teams with additional sponsorship and membership problems next year. As various people have noted, the AFL is trending towards the EPL and there have even been calls for a relegation system. But relegation only works in the English game because most, if not all, the clubs have been relegated at some point in their history. Going down is part of football life. Here it would bear the stigma of losers and the AFL would soon have half the number of teams. Footy at the lower levels of the AFL ladder still has its interest as shown this week by the articles published in Fairfax Media by the Bulldogs' Bob Murphy and Melbourne's Chris Dawes. Murphy speaks the inner truth of the game, in this case of an older player who knows the premiership dream is behind him, while being unwavering in his affection for his battling club. Dawes, the Collingwood premiership forward who joined the Dees this year, is a law student. His article, written as a letter to his teammates, was candid and knowledgeable, a model of clear purposeful thought. Along with Motlop's run and Harry's mark and Johnson's tackle, those articles were two of the best things I saw or heard in footy this week.