ANDREW DEMETRIOU'S public utterances have not always struck a chord, particularly north of the Murray. But the AFL chief's musing that further representative matches were "not on our radar" should be music to fans' ears.

The Hall of Fame tribute match had been marketed as an event that would showcase the very best players and provide a fitting celebration of roughly 150 years of Australian Rules. As it was, Saturday night's occasionally entertaining but soulless contest was merely what you would expect when a state takes on a concept, and a reminder of why the original State of Origin died a not particularly lamented death almost a decade ago.

The large but eerily quiet crowd of 69,294 that managed to resist the urge to perform the Mexican wave until halfway through the final quarter, when the match was still in the balance, might justify the claims of the sentimental or self-interested that there is an audience hungry to see "the best against the best". But when you consider this was the only game in a football-addicted town where 187,853 attended the five matches played (in Victoria) the previous weekend, the attendance seems only decent.

There were the brilliant cameos, moments to savour and fluid passages of play that are inevitable when the fittest, strongest and most skilful combine. But whether it was by gentleman's agreement between coaches or because there was simply nothing on the line, the absence of physical pressure devalued the contest - or, to be kind, underlined its "exhibition" status.

Brendan Fevola's six goals for Victoria earned him the Allen Aylett Medal as best afield. That meant a match-day award again celebrated the apparent rehabilitation of a noted bad boy, as it had when Geelong's Steve Johnson won last year's Norm Smith Medal.

But if in 10 years' time a lot of people remember being at the Hall of Fame game, far fewer will remember what they saw. Rather than providing a memorable demonstration of outstanding football or mounting a case for the return of Origin, the match merely underlined the league's brilliance at selling itself with the help of an often compliant media - something that will prove more difficult in western Sydney and the Gold Coast.

In the lead-up to the game, the AFL's marketing machine had made the propaganda of Joseph Goebbels seem understated. Stars who are usually protected like precious stones by their clubs were paraded before cameras like performing seals. No public space, local identity or zoo animal was spared from a Hall of Fame photo opportunity.

The AFL's decision to clear the schedule for the game was wise. With no real games to occupy a print and electronic media contingent that is often said to be larger than that which covers federal parliament, the void was filled with almost routinely glowing forecasts or nostalgic reminiscences of State of Origin past - most happily overlooking the fact that the exercise was a contrived exhibition.

With a more appropriate approach to a non-contest, Channel Ten exploited the AFL's promotional zeal by putting cameras on umpires, goalposts and near the interchange bench. Well done them for giving the new angles a go. But let's hope the blurred image of the ball pounding into the turf from "umpy cam" will never destroy the pleasure of watching a game in which the proximity of the ball is important and pray we will never again endure the cliche-riddled exchange between commentators and coaches during play.

The spirit of Saturday's match was in direct contrast to the concept it honoured. The AFL's Hall of Fame induction ceremony, held last Thursday, is now the best and most emotional night on the league's events calendar. This year, the tributes to everyone from newly elevated legend Alex Jesaulenko to 500-game umpire Tom McArthur were routinely moving, their stories enriched by the passions stirred by club football.

As for the revival of representative football, the Mexican wave nailed the coffin shut and a knee injury suffered by Collingwood ruckman Josh Fraser late in the game was the final sod thrown in the grave. If there is no sympathy for the serially-loathed Magpies, then surely the thought that it might have been Hawthorn wonderboy Lance Franklin or Sydney's brilliant Adam Goodes who had fallen in the name of a meaningless cause will remind fans that in the latter stages of the past 150 years, real passion has been for club, not state. And especially not concept.