For argument’s sake, let’s assume for a minute that the entire outside world is wrong and there is absolutely no personal feud between coach Jason Taylor and star hooker Robbie Farah. Everyone at the Wests Tigers, while not besties by any stretch, is in it together, working towards the common goal of getting the joint venture club to the finals.

Just like in the real world, the Tigers aren’t going swimmingly in this parallel universe of ours, but they aren’t exactly cruising, either. There aren’t that many games left in the season and JT’s boys need to sharpen up. So he looks at his squad, identifies Farah as the weakness and demotes him to reserve grade.

In most other elite leagues in most other countries, this act of culling is considered business, a - albeit cruel and ruthless - part of professional sport. But not in Australia … yet.

Perhaps what Taylor’s demotion of Farah at the weekend revealed most was that Australian sports fans haven’t quite caught up with the concept of full-blown pro sport. Your author was at Leichhardt Oval the Saturday following Farah’s sacking, where the State of Origin hooker was plying his trade in the NSW Intrust Super Premiership, or reserve grade. Attendance at the historic suburban ground was up big-time because of Farah’s presence, and the throng mobbed him in support at full-time, jumping the fence to either chase an autograph or pat him on the back.

Defiant chants of “Robbie … Robbie … Robbie” eventually broke out, as well as some inspired by Taylor’s controversial decision.

To the outside world – outside Australia, we mean - a coach had just made a change to his side he believed would result in it performing better. That’s what the coach is paid to do and he’ll be sacked if the team underperforms. However, to the Tigers’ faithful at Leichhardt Oval on Saturday, they had just seen one of their beloved players treated very unfairly by the coach, and threw their support behind him.

This column is not a criticism of either the Taylor or Farah sides of the debate, or rugby league fans or Aussie footy fans in general. Just an observation. It should be hardly surprising that Australians are still very much emotionally connected to their players and clubs despite their modern-day professionalism.

This “doing it for the money” thing is still pretty new to us. While foreign leagues - such as America’s professional baseball - have been partaking in full-on professionalism for around a century, we’re still pretty raw to it all. Our World Series-era cricketers in the late 1970s were our pioneers, but are still looked at in some quarters as greedy traitors. Super League’s arrival in the mid-90s has proven the true arrival in Australia of this thing we call professional sport, which, judging by the reaction to Farah’s sacking, we’ll be busy getting used to for a long time to come.

It’s good to see that in Australia there is still room for passionate fan and player loyalty, despite the involvement of the big bucks.