49ers support of Australia could give them unexpected advantage vs Rams

Kyle Shanahan has had a change of tone now that the 49ers are on the ground in Melbourne, Australia, almost 8,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean from their home base.No, he hasn’t adopted an accent from Down Under.“After being here for a couple days,” the San Francisco coach said before his team’s first official practice Monday morning local time (late Sunday back home), “this is the right time to be here, it’s the right place to be and it’s the right team to go against.”When it was initially announced that the Niners would open the season against the Rams on foreign soil, Shanahan wasn’t a fan.As the designated home team, the Rams got to choose their opponent for the NFL’s first regular-season game on the faraway continent.Bringing the 49ers along with them didn’t only mean a division rival would have to go through the same rigorous travel — it would also prevent the annual invasion of SoFi Stadium by the San Francisco faithful. The Rams thought they were robbing the Niners of the extra home game they get every year.

But maybe they didn’t think it all the way through.“We always have an advantage of having one, I see it as one home game a year in LA.Just the way our fans are and take over that stadium,” Shanahan said.

“So, it was disappointing to let them off the hook and get them out of that.But knowing how our fans roll, I have a feeling they won’t be much different here.

I expect to have a good showing.”It’s unlikely that there will be enough fans who make the trek from either San Francisco or LA to determine the home-field advantage in the massive 95,000-seat Melbourne Cricket Ground.It’ll be the Aussies bringing the energy (per usual).And why wouldn’t they be on the 49ers’ side with the polar opposite ways the teams have approached the game? San Fran got in Friday morning local time, a full week before kickoff, and headed straight to a flag football clinic.Some players were able to fight off the jet lag to stay u...