Nicole Kidman got married in Sydney. Geoff Ogilvy won the US Open in New York. Kylie Minogue confirmed that she'd be back on tour before Christmas. And to cap it all off, in the early hours of Friday morning over here, the Socceroos, lead by Harry Kewell (below) no less, qualified for the second round, oh sorry, the round of 16, in the World Cup by drawing with Croatia in an excruciatingly nervy fixture.

All good news stories at this end of the globe in the week that was in it.

But the success of the Socceroos was the eye-catcher, even though it was good to see the Princess of Pop returning from ill-health. Soccer in this country (we won't confuse ourselves by calling it football) has traditionally been down around the bottom of the sporting food chain, below, in some kind of running order, Aussie rules, cricket, rugby league and those nice chaps who play union. Golf and tennis are most likely ahead of it too but we'll keep our chain to team sports so as not to embarrass them further.

This traditional pecking order is strange in many ways because soccer was one of the first sports to arrive in Australia, if not straight off the boat with the convicts, then following with the next couple of waves of newcomers.

But those initial settlers never really grasped onto the concept and their relationship with the round-ball game got even worse once the second world war had run its course. Its aftermath is responsible for soccer being so far down the Australian sporting table.

The defeat of Hitler and the Axis powers saw thousands of southern Europeans . . . Italians, Croatians, Greeks and the like . . . heading off to make new homes for themselves in Australia.

The newcomers main social pastime when they set up sticks around the country was soccer and as you may have noticed over time . . . from the nation that saw one political party go with a "two wogs don't make a white" emigration policy as late as the 1970s . . . the Aussies aren't the most racially tolerant bunch of people in the world.

Can you see where we're heading with this? Soccer, as it has been called for half a century, was now christened wogball.

But that was then, this is now and this current bunch of Socceroos are beginning to dismantle the previous order. The coverage this team gets is absolutely phenomenal. Forget the fact it's almost totally blinkered . . . an Eamon Dunphy 1990style tantrum would almost certainly have seen him being left to fend for himself in a pit of frisky, sexually deprived Kangaroos . . . it's just everywhere.

It's not often you see blanket newspaper coverage of an event which has, down the bottom of the page, an explanation of the actual rules of the sport but soccer is catching on and the other codes are beginning to run a little scared. Particularly the ones, like Aussie rules and rugby league, that have no international element worthy of the name. If you don't have a real reason for screaming "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi", you could be in a bit of bother.

All of which has prompted a bit of a moral purging from the purists attached to the sports under threat. In some ways they're very GAA-like in their arguments, with one letter in Thursday's edition of the Western Australian summing up rather nicely the general feeling among those brutish Aussies about the place.

"I watch the games of the Socceroos with pride and hope they win, but I have concerns about the detrimental impact their success could have on Australia, " says Kevin Moran from Hilarys, not Dublin, it must be stressed. "Australian soccer, regardless of its administrators' efforts, is still a game that promotes tensions between ethnic communities causing further harm to our already damaged social cohesion.

It does not promote friendship between competing nations, as indicated by rampaging supporters attacking each other."

An interesting theory so far and he one he feels worthy of elaboration: "The Australian ethos is one of ruggedness and extreme hardship, built on a past of fidelity and mateship with a meritorious capacity to endure. These are still displayed and exemplified in our football codes of Australian rules and rugby. Soccer presents a disparity to these cultural aspects with the pretence of writhing about in pain from an ankle tap or soft contact. The rules of the game were made by a committee of blue blood English university students based on their fear of physicality. The rules are in direct contrast to the aspects of life which forged the Australian character."

Mmm. Ever get the feeling that's what our GAA friends are trying to tell us when they're gripped with fear that soccer and rugby will envelop the nation?

They're not the only ones on this earth that are ragged with worry at being usurped by sports with an international dimension. But we're all missing the point. Others sports aren't the rivals here, things like drink, drugs, cigarettes and Playstations are. As long as our kids are fit, healthy and active, and the rest of us are getting a beam of happiness into our lives, does it really matter what sport we play or watch?

There are other scourges out there but alternative sports are not them.