Which is why the "Q Clash" between Brisbane and Gold Coast hasn't yet inspired much feeling. Or why the early branding of clashes between Sydney rivals the Swans and Giants as the "Battle of the Bridge" earned more scorn and cynicism than interest.

For a new club seen, however unfairly, as some sort of "Frankenstein's monster" operating out of traditionally apathetic territory, establishing rivalry of any sort was going to be particularly difficult.

Which is why Friday night's game between Greater Western Sydney and the Western Bulldogs could be just as important to the big picture for the Giants as any grand final they reach this season, or if you listen to some alarmists, the next six or seven years.

As pleased as the AFL would be to see GWS take out a premiership just six seasons into their creation as an 18th league team, the idea that flags could be won by clubs nobody cared much about is equally a potentially damaging prospect.

But it's safe to say indifference won't be an issue on Friday night. This is a match-up which actually does tick all the boxes of authenticity.

Indeed, it has something which a lot of more traditional rivalries have lacked of late. Two sides at the peak of their powers, and whose last meeting - last year's epic preliminary final - was by consensus the best game of 2016.

That was the requisite big moment, as more than 10,000 travelling Bulldogs fans bit their nails to the quick then released a torrent of emotion, reaching a grand final for the first time in 55 years after seven straight preliminary final losses, a feat which covers the history front pretty effectively.

There was symbolism in that finish, too, given less than two years earlier, a last-minute goal to the Giants' Devon Smith in the final home and away game of the 2014 season sent the Dogs to their lowest ebb for some time.

It's the angst which is turning the Giants v Bulldogs into something a bit more than a garden variety home and away game, and there's certainly even more of that now from a GWS perspective after falling agonisingly short of a grand final berth.

That gave the Bulldogs more than a little payback for the presence at GWS of three former favourites, coach Leon Cameron, a player who almost certainly would have become a Bulldog captain in Callan Ward, and another who did in Ryan Griffen.

And the feeling of karma was only reinforced a week later, when the other party to Griffen's departure, former Giant Tom Boyd, played a magnificent game and kicked the sealing goal in a famous grand final win.

Culturally, the differences are profound. No club better represents where the AFL is headed - to new areas, new demographics and, potentially, a new level of football excellence - than GWS.

The Bulldogs may have been rebranded from Footscray 20 years ago, but there's never been any mistaking the club's old school operation and working class feel, not to mention the importance of one of the AFL's most famously loyal supporter bases.

Each club has been prepared to play on those themes as well, in cheeky memes like the Giants' "Lost Dogs Home" and "BeLessBulldog" hashtags, the Bullies, thanks to comedic banner man Danny McGinlay, coming up with a classic run-through before the preliminary final which read: "Our club was born in blood and boots, not in AFL focus groups".

Last Friday night, after questioning on Twitter just how authentic was the feeling between the clubs, it didn't take long to receive plenty of answers.

"It's big for Doggies fans. The team that got given everything, to the team that got given nothing." "Not a beat-up. Ask any Dogs fan who they enjoy beating the most." "I'm just salty about 'Griff'. Even though his departure started the chain reaction that resulted in a Bulldogs flag. We loved 'Griff'."

And GWS supporters? "Don't worry, there's no love lost." "Giants fans feel it too. It's a genuine rivalry, albeit a young one."

It's the fans, ultimately, who determine which football enmities are real, and which are contrived. Perhaps this one now really is a match-up worthy of a spot in one of those "rivalry rounds". And for the AFL's newest club in particular, another leg up the climb to football legitimacy.