The AFL landed a gigantic blow to rugby league in Sydney on Saturday with 60,222 gathering to watch GWS win their maiden qualifying final over the Swans.
This was the biggest AFL crowd at ANZ Stadium since 2007 and dwarfed the NRL's best effort for a club game this year, the 38,192 who turned out to watch South Sydney lost to Canterbury in round four.
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Giants monster battered Swans
Greater Western Sydney trashed Sydney by 36 points in the club's first ever final.
And it all came on a day where there was no rugby league in the harbour city with both NRL finals being played interstate.
Today's elimination final between Penrith and Canterbury at Allianz Stadium is the only NRL game in town this weekend, and they'll be lucky to attract a crowd a third of the size that witnessed the historic Swans-Giants game.
![Crowd pleasers: Lachie Whitfield and the Giants rose for the occasion at ANZ Stadium](/web/20160912062034im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/d/h/7/y/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grdee9.png/1473544764351.jpg)
The bumper attendance fell just short of the 61,247 who turned up two weeks ago to watch the American college football game between University of California Golden Bears and the Rainbow Warriors of Hawaii.
It also fell just short of the 61,267 that attended ANZ Stadium for the third State of Origin game this year.
In its last assignment as an AFL venue before the ground is transformed into a rectangular venue, ANZ Stadium hosted the magnificent spectacle this game deserved.
Olympic Park was a sea of red and white with splashes of orange and black prior to the first bounce yesterday afternoon.
Two young boys out the front of the ground enjoyed a kick to kick in the build up.Â
One was wearing a Swans jersey, the other the blue and gold of a Parramatta Eels strip.
Inside the ground Swans fans outnumbered their Giants counterparts roughly five to one, but they've had a 30-year headstart in establishing a presence in the city.
 Should the Giants continue in this vein, it won't take nearly that long for GWS to start racking up a new generation of supporters.
"My personal view is that the Giants can become a very big football side," AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick told ABC radio.Â
"They can become a very big team and a very big club."
It was end-to-end and hard-hitting stuff in the qualifying final with sprinklings of niggle that will fast-become a regular feature of the AFL's newest rivalry.
Steve Johnson felled Josh Kennedy before Shane Mumford ironed out Kurt Tippett.Â
Both needed assistance leaving the field, and both spent a long stretch stuck on the interchange bench before resuming duties.
Rising Star Callum Mills meanwhile left the field with a hamstring injury and will likely miss the rest of this finals series.
Both sides suffered from nerves, not a surprise given the two-week build up  and inaccurate kicking plagued both teams.Â
There was no great breeze to speak of and the ground drained well after overnight rain.
Yesterday's blockbuster was just a taster for Sydney AFL fans. The city will host a semi-final next weekend and then a preliminary final the week after.Â
"If we wanted to be Australia's game, we had to really be Australia's game – we couldn't be concentrated in the southern states," Fitzpatrick said.
"We just weren't represented in Queensland and NSW in the way that we felt the great Australian game of Australian Rules should be.Â
"The long view – and it's a 20- to 30-year view – is that we need to become the dominant sport in those states."
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