Last week, I was given some disturbing, although not that surprising data, by someone very close to the greatest trainwreck in the game's history.

Given the data, I thought I’d do a quick focus group questionnaire, with a nearest the pin from serious football people and supporters, to ascertain how deep the myth versus the reality was.

The simple question was this?

How many 13-and-under boys do you think have registered to play AFL football this year, in the west of Sydney’s 14 clubs?

Now, given that we are in the 15th year of the Giants, and if you include the development budget of just under $20 million per year, we have spent the best part of three quarters of $1 billion fighting a football war of expansion that we started, you’d expect the number of kids signing up to be significant.

There are roughly 22,000 boys of that age from grades 3-6 available for registration. So how many do u think have registered?

Tom Morris said 3800.

AFL premiership coach Adam Simpson 3300.

A highly regarded Melbourne-based football manager 1800.

Melbourne’s most famous restaurateur, Chris Lucas, who, like the AFL, has recently expanded into Sydney, said 950.

Andrew Thompson, former St Kilda and State of Origin player, 2400.

Sam Edmund, my co-host, 3200.

Nick Gold, stockbroker and very concerned St Kilda supporter, 470.

Sarah Jones, Fox Footy host extraordinaire, 1950.

David King and his computer said 303.

Rohan Davis, a very excited Melbourne supporter, 2950.

Mark Rothfield, owner of SEN, 3700.

Ollie, our super producer and proud Dogs supporter, 1573. He’s a detail man.

Ken Hinkley, coach on the couch, 500.

Jordan Lewis, 500.

That was enough to give me some idea about the disparity between the real and the imagined.

And the real wasn’t 4000 or 3000, or 2000 or 1000... $750 million spent, don’t forget.

It wasn’t even 500, or 400, or 200 kids signed up for the 13 and under... it wasn’t even 100.

It was 97.

That’s the number for the 14 clubs in the west, from Parramatta to Bankstown, over to Ingleburn, Camperdown, etc. No doubt a few stragglers will turn up next week before the season kicks off.

I could swear, I could carry on, on behalf of those who have told this story before again and again, but the shockingly low number tells the story of abject failure and mismanagement itself. 97.

Let that sink in for a second... 97.

How do you run a competition of 14 teams with 97 players, with hour-long drives and $100 road tolls?

We think we are expanding the game, putting up with empty stadia week after week. But the joke's on us all who have been fed the expansion fable.

Thank God they are a good club and team, and absolutely worth watching and supporting. But no one knows or cares where it counts, in the west of Sydney.

Some say I’ve been hard on the commission, Richard Goyder and the executive, but clearly I wasn’t being hard enough, for without NSW, Queensland is our only growth corridor, and there’s already four NRL teams established there.

Growth is king, and Peter V'landys is charging while we've sat like frogs in the boiling water.

It’s worse than bewildering, and no doubt a few on the commission are now angry at themselves for being deceived, but their eyes told the real story, so the excuses are limited.

And all, after serious football people warned them years ago verbally, time after time, and a seriously well-constructed major document was delivered straight to the right people outlining the disaster and path forward, some years ago, from someone who truly knows Sydney football backwards.

I truly wonder if that document ever hit the commission table. I very much doubt it.

The myth was allowed to continue.

But as blinded as the management has been in the past on Sydney’s west, it’s now largely irrelevant.

There’s a new head of the commission, Craig Drummond, with Andrew Ireland, a recent addition, who clearly knows the reality from the myth. A new head of football is driving the show in Andrew Verasdi, who hopefully has the will and wisdom to right the now-sinking ship.

A new plan and hopefully a very, very big budget, $50/60 million or more, is going to be needed and ticked off on by the commission ASAP... if the game's expansion is to be resuscitated.

It will now be much more difficult, given that Peter V'landy‘s has fortified the west since the AFL made its ill-conceived strike without the weaponry to back it up. But it’s not an insurmountable challenge given the product we have to sell. Simply put, it’s a shot they have to take as the NRL swamps us for eyeballs.

For years, people on the ground have been screaming for help, and have delivered the truth of Western Sydney directly to the heavyweights.

But no one moved, no one acted, no one listened … the only question is, are they going to listen now?