IF THE AFL is serious about correctly diagnosing the disease that has infected Victorian football clubs, it only need look to Manuka Oval two days ago for one symptom.

The old VFL's disastrous results over the past decade — two flags in 10 years despite a disproportionate number of clubs and no Victorian club in a grand final since 2003 — requires analysis and AFL boss Andrew Demetriou has identified the problem significantly late. But surely money remains a massive factor when the Western Bulldogs are forced to sell a home game to Canberra — and play Sydney for good measure.

"There was a lot of red and white and it's not often you see an away team go and do a lap of honour afterwards and clap their fans," was the assessment of Bulldogs midfielder Scott West. "But that's football, you play where you've got to play and this is our home game and we'll have to deal with it."

Coach Rodney Eade added last night: "It obviously takes away your advantage, on yesterday's performance we wouldn't have won on the moon, but unfortunately the economic reality is we have to wear the disadvantage."

Club president David Smorgon vowed last night to throw all of the club's resources at the problem but conceded there would be no change to the current situation of nine home games in Melbourne, one in Canberra and one in Darwin, at least until 2010.

"It's a huge advantage to the non-Victorian clubs and we will continue to work to ensure that one day we'll be able to play 11 home games in Melbourne," said Smorgon.

Yes, the Bulldogs were terrible on Sunday. But when two of the most fancied Victorian teams at the start of the season to make the top four, the Bulldogs and Melbourne, are selling home games to interstate opponents before the race has even started, then surely that plight is simpler to fix.

Because the AFL is trying to fix two problems by relocating the Kangaroos to the Gold Coast, Melbourne, which has fallen apart this season, and the Bulldogs have been lumbered with Canberra, which is interested in the AFL only if it is allowed to fall in love with one consistently visiting home team.

The Bulldogs accept that any finger-pointing must include themselves. For much of the '90s, the club was a basketcase. But while the club did not perform due diligence on Telstra Dome in 1998, it was placed at an extreme disadvantage and still believes it was sold a pup by the original owners and the AFL.

Last season, the club averaged 38,500 per home game at Telstra Dome and yet for the year earned just $160,000 in match returns — substantially less than Essendon, which in a poor season averaged about 38,600. Not only have the Bulldogs drawn more fans by winning games and playing entertaining football, but they have also significantly increased their membership, which now sits at more than 28,000.

The AFL gives the club $1.7 million a year but on the evidence, so it should. Only after the Bulldogs went to the AFL on the eve of 2007 would Telstra Dome agree to increase the club's match returns by $85,000 to $245,000 for the season.

The Bulldogs tried to turn Darwin into a winner on cultural, financial and football fronts by negotiating a two-game-a-year deal with the Northern Territory Government. But the AFL blocked the attempt to play consecutive games in the Northern Territory and did its own deal, saying that two games in Darwin was not cost effective and that television networks did not fancy covering games there. (In other words, the AFL was not prepared to fund the significant added cost of TV coverage.)

As Eade said, the team probably wouldn't have won on the moon the way it played on Sunday. But in 2005 the Bulldogs sold a home game to the SCG, lost by less than a goal and missed the finals by half a game.

Would a finals appearance or two have been worth more to the club in terms of sponsorship, membership and team morale than the $250,000 or so it netted from playing in Sydney? The point is that the Bulldogs, who are doing plenty of things right at the moment, couldn't afford to take the risk of finding out.

The other point is that no non-Victorian club these days would have allowed that scenario to unfold in the first place. Nor would the AFL have let it happen.