An MSN discussion with yob about the amazing nature of English football led me to think about the number of divisions there are in Rugby League and other sports in Australia.

I must be missing some, but if you exclude age-limited divisions in RL I can only think of:

NRL
NSWRL Premier League
Jim Beam Cup
CRL First Grade
CRL First Division
CRL Second Division

Somebody help me!

OK, now that i've proven that I know nothing about grass-roots football let's see people who know what they're talking about set me right.

OK - I'll reply if no-one else will. With Australian Football, there are no formal divisions as such. And things are more complicated than what Cheesie outlined for RL.

Below the AFL, there are the major state leagues - SANFL, VFL and WAFL being the big 3. Under this, its murky. In Victoria, (I'll leave the other states to the locals) there are 3 major football organisations below the VFL -
(1) Metropolitan Football League, which is split into geogprahical sections each with its own competition (Eastern, Southern, Diamond Valley, Western) and then each into divisions.

(2) VAFA (Amatuers or Ammos) Seperate and apart from the Metro League, the ammos are basically the equivalent of club rugby union in Sydney (with a similar demographic) except in Melbourne they play the same football code as the plebs. Lots of clubs and divisions, the 1st division would roughly match 1st division metro league, but generally less physical, but faster, arguabley more skilfull (debatable) brand of footy.

(3) VCFL, which encompasses major, middle level and minor country leagues, but the differences are often blurred. The Warrnambool FL (a minor league only) had over 7,000 to its GF last weekend, but some major leagues will double this number or more in the next week or two.

I'm hopefully playing in the Vic Ammos next year, the team im goign for is a B grade struggler but yeh its mainly the high schools that have Old Collegian sides then there are suburb based teams amongst there and their is liek a trillion sides in it

If my post implies that it is simple, it would be misleading.

In NSW of course you've got the NSWRL who organise football in Sydney and the CRL who organise football outside of Sydney.

The fact that I only mentioned it as simply as I did is a reflection on my limited knowledge rather than on any actual simplicity!

True - postivist v relativist was far simpler

Football divisions are socially constructed, don't you know?