One of the last refuges of institutional homophobia takes a giant step into the 21st century on Saturday night with the inaugural AFL Pride Game.St Kildas AFL clash with Sydney will feature rainbow-coloured footballs, 50m arcs and umpire flags in an attempt to win over sexually diverse fans.Its a brave new world for the AFL - given the closest its come to a rainbow-themed game would be when early-era Fremantle in their purple, green and red guernseys hosted the brown and gold-clad Hawthorn.Studies show theres work to be done.The largest research piece into homophobia in sport, the Out on the Fields report released in 2015, paints a frightening picture for lesbian, gay and bisexual sport participants and fans.More than half of respondents believe adult sport is not safe for sexually diverse people and eight in every 10 respondents have seen or felt homophobia in sport.Its why St Kilda chief executive Matt Finnis wants the Pride Game to be embraced, and not just tolerated, by the industry.Tolerance suggests an acceptance, and perhaps a reluctant one.Pride means to celebrate.When you apply the pride label, youre saying its a celebration, he told AAP.Thats important because pride is the opposite of shame.No one should ever feel ashamed to come to the footy and hold their partners hand, or feel uncomfortable because of homophobic language.AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan said the league was proud to partner in such an important initiative with the two clubs.People are born how theyre born, thats just a fact, and there are some in the community who still might not accept that, he said.If we can play a role with St Kilda and Sydney in calling out that fact and that everyone should be able to be who they want to be.If we can do that through a football game and have the conversation then lets have it.The Pride Game is an adaptation of the grassroots Pride Cup championed by Yarra Glen football club and player Jason Ball.Finnis says AFL players have driven the translation to AFL level.To our younger supporters and players, with an average age in the young 20s, sexual diversity is far more normalised than the generations that have gone before them, he said.From Brock McLean and Dan Jackson being the first players to march at Pride with Jason Ball several years ago now ... to Sam Gilbert fronting this Pride Game this weekend.It would be fair to say players have been at the forefront.Given hundreds of thousands of fans - either at Etihad Stadium or watching on the free-to-air broadcast - will see an AFL match in technicolour like never before, Finnis is expecting some backlash.Its difficult to say what everyones reactions will be, he said.We just hope what we can do through this game is to open peoples eyes to the importance of everyone being welcome.The Pride Game follows in the footsteps of previous social inclusion campaigns, which has championed indigenous players and women in football. 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Andrew Wiggins made 10-of-12 from the foul line and scored 17 for Kansas (14-4, 5-0 Big 12), which capped a stretch of four straight games against ranked opponents unscathed. BUDAPEST, Hungary -- Fernando Alonso is treating McLarens promising Friday practice performance with caution after he and teammate Jenson Button finished seventh and eighth in FP2 for the Hungarian Grand Prix.Mercedes appears to be in a class of its own at the Hungaroring, with Red Bull and Ferrari in a battle for the second and third rows of the grid. McLaren was the fourth quickest team in both practice sessions on Friday, but Alonso warned that Friday pace has not always transferred to high grid positions once the Mercedes-powered teams switch to their qualifying settings.We were 7th today but well have to see how it goes, he said. We were up there in Silverstone and just made into Q3 to qualify 10th. I think well be in the battle to get into Q3 and hopefully well be in the top ten as that should give us an advantage in the race.Lets see what happens tomorrow, as others do improve a lot when they get full use of ttheir engines in qualifying, especially the Mercedes.ddddddddddddHere the engine counts a bit less, so hopefully they wont have that much of an advantage and well be able to stay up there.McLaren had to fit a used Honda power unit to Alonsos car between practice sessions after his new one from Silverstone developed a problem.The first session went rather well, there were no issues, but while we were in the technical meeting a Honda engineer came up to tell us it would be better to change the Power Unit. So they put back the one I used in Austria and Azerbaijan, and it ran with no problems in FP2, so it will stay in the car for tomorrow.Of course its bad news to have to change a Power Unit that has done just one Grand Prix, in Silverstone, but its not a step backward, its something normal. ' ' '