IN THE undeclared war between football codes, the AFL has advanced its D-Day by three years. Partly, it has been forced to by the expansionary zeal of its rivals. Rugby league, after three attempts, looks to have established a thriving club on the Gold Coast.

Soccer's A League is looking to launch a team there, possibly as soon as next season. It already has a name, Galaxy. Rugby union is also making plans. "We've had to change our plans," an AFL man said yesterday.

The AFL tried Surfers once before, but acknowledges it got it all wrong. It plonked the Bears there in 1987 and hoped the roots would grow down. Without nourishment, nothing took. But for the past five years, the AFL has spent up to $5 million a year growing the game from the grass up: Auskick, junior clubs, telecast deals. This year, there are 17 Gold Coast players on AFL lists.

Besides, 20 years ago, the Gold Coast was a holiday resort. Now it is boomtown Australia, Queensland's second city.

AFL officials look longingly at Tony Smith, a onetime Swans ruckman, now millionaire Gold Coast property developer, who has thrown in his lot with rugby league's Titans, but surely would be a natural recruit. "There's lots like him," said an insider.

The AFL knows western Sydney is a tougher proposition, more hard-core rugby league than the Gold Coast, not nearly as wealthy and almost barren in terms of producing AFL players.

But the league sees the west's vast population as a self-contained market. It believes it is receptive to AFL: four games last year at the Olympic stadium, on the fringe of the west, averaged 63,000. It has been pouring in millions at the grassroots. There are now nearly 70 junior clubs in greater Sydney.

The AFL thinks it is crucial to have a game in Sydney every week, and a Sydney team on television, too. Cameo appearances by the Kangaroos and Bulldogs did not work, and the league has abandoned the idea of relocation, so a Blacktown team it will be.

Timing is problematic. Four years is too soon, really, but to wait out the life of another television deal after 2012 would be to tread water. Chances are the new team will lose money heavily in the beginning. But the AFL has shown before that it is prepared to pay. It has had its rewards.

The Swans will object, saying the market is still only niche-sized. So will the Lions. But the AFL thinks new teams in both states will create new polarities and new rivalries, strengthening all four clubs. It is what happened in Perth and Adelaide.

On the AFL's own research, by 2012 it will be long overdue on the Gold Coast, but three years ahead of itself in western Sydney. Nonetheless, in both places, it was always a matter of when, not if. When is now a date.