Welcome everybody to the Battle of the Bridge, Sydney Derby III, here at ANZ Stadium as we kick off the 2013 Toyota AFL Premiership season in Sydney.

I would like to welcome the Deputy CEO of the AFL, Gillon McLachlan and his wife Laura and also Tony Peek, the assistant to the AFL CEO, Andrew Demetriou, who have joined us today.

I would like to also welcome the Swans and their chairman Richard Colless and chief executive Andrew Ireland and congratulate them and everyone at the club on winning the 2012 AFL premiership.

It was a sensational performance in a memorable grand final and a tremendous boost for the game here in NSW. Well done to the Swans on a thoroughly deserved victory.

2012 was the biggest year so far for the AFL here in Sydney with the Swans winning the premiership and the inclusion of the AFL's 18th club, the Greater Western Sydney GIANTS. We saw record crowds, record memberships, record TV ratings and record participation with the addition of the second club.

Indeed, participation in Western Sydney alone increased by 27 per cent, as has coverage of the game across the state and AFL has never been stronger since the Swans first moved here from Melbourne more than 30 years ago.

The people of Sydney can watch AFL live every week and have a choice of which club they want to follow. You've gotta love that.

Since the GIANTS last game against North Melbourne at Skoda Stadium last September, we have had a very busy six months on and off the field.

We have hired a new senior assistant coach in Leon Cameron who will succeed Kevin Sheedy as Head Coach next year. Kevin was involved in the selection process and continues to be a wonderful servant of the club and the greatest ambassador we could have for the game in NSW and we hope he will continue to work for the GIANTS for many years to come.

We have drafted six new players into the club including Lachie Whitfield and Lachie Plowman who will make their debuts today and we wish them well and acknowledge their parents who are here tonight. It will be a special night for Maryanne and Richard Whitfield and Elaine and Brendan Plowman and we welcome them.

We have also recruited some experienced senior players into the club including Stephen Gilham and Bret Thornton. Steve will play his 100th game tonight and we congratulate him on this milestone in his first game for the GIANTS and welcome his parents Sharyn and John Gilham.

We have re-signed a number of players, bringing to nearly half of our list who have made long term commitments to the GIANTS. This is a huge show of faith in our club and a tribute to the work of everybody but particularly our football department for what they have done to settle them into the club and develop them on and off the field.

Work has started on our new training and administration facility at Sydney Olympic Park. Together with AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick I inspected the new training oval this week and we hope it will be ready for players to train on very soon. The grass is down and the goalposts up and I am pleased to report Mike Fitzpatrick has lost none of his touch, kicking the first ever goal on the new training oval. I kicked the first point.

In the meantime, our staff have moved into temporary offices at Sydney Olympic Park not far from the football department which is housed at the Athletics Centre. We hope the new facility will be ready later this year and will offer a state of the art training and administration centre to rival other AFL clubs.

We have welcomed a number of new staff to the club here and in Canberra and we are genuinely excited about what our second year in the AFL holds. We have also welcomed new sponsors and we thank them all for their support of the club as we do our major partners, Skoda, Lifebroker and ofcourse Canberra in its centenary year.

We have already signed up more than 11,300 members which is well in excess of last year's total of 10,241. We are building a great support base here in Western Sydney but also in Canberra where we have about 3,000 members and look forward to playing our first ever AFL premiership match under the new lights at Manuka Oval in just a couple of weeks from now.

The team has enjoyed a very solid pre-season, winning its first ever game against the Swans in the NAB Cup at Blacktown and showed that it will play a very competitive and exciting brand of football in 2013. 

With another pre-season under their belts and the injection of more talented players, competition for spots will be fierce and I have every confidence that you are going to see some genuinely exciting football this year.

We are also very excited about this new concept, the Battle of the Bridge. It's already become quite a talking point and we think it will help build the rivalry between the two clubs.

As the inclusion of the Wanderers here in Western Sydney has demonstrated,  there is nothing like cross town rivalries. We want this to become one of the biggest rivalries in Australian sport.

We believe we have an obligation to promote the game and engage with new fans to help build the code and give opportunities for young people in Sydney to play our game.

While we will always be fierce competitors on the field, off the field we can help grow this wonderful game not just in the east and west but also the north and south of Sydney and right across the regions of NSW and the ACT.

We can argue about who has supporters where but at the end of the day we should all be committed to one thing - growing the game so the people of this city can enjoy it for generations to come.

I was particularly interested by the comments last week by Lewis Roberts-Thomson, a boy who grew up in Sydney and is now a two time premiership player who said he was delighted that Sydney now had a new club in the GIANTS and the opportunities this offered.

Last year, not far from here, the Concord Cats junior football club became the first club in Sydney to change its name to the GIANTS. Since they took this bold step, their registrations have almost doubled and they will have nearly 200 boys and girls playing at the club this year, many of them experiencing AFL for the first time.

It shows you the enormous potential of the sport in this city and particularly in the west. Hopefully like Lewis Roberts-Thomson, some of those youngsters will one day be running around out here on ANZ Stadium proudly representing the Greater Western Sydney GIANTS or the Swans.

Enjoy what should be a great game and I wish you and your families a safe and happy Easter.

Go GIANTS