Solution for a fairer AFL draw
Roar Rookie By nsfwafl18531, 17 Aug 2012 nsfwafl18531 is a Roar Rookie
- Tagged:
- 2012 AFL season, AFL, afl draw, AFL fixture
Brett Deledio dejected after a loss in the AFL Round 18 match between the Carlton Blues and the Richmond Tigers at the MCG, Melbourne. (Photo: Lachlan Cunningham/AFL Media)
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Is it too much for us to ask for a fair AFL draw? Surely if we want to have the best competition in the world we need to make sure our fixture is fair.
Having 18 teams play 22 games a season makes this difficult. But I think I have found a way that the fixture could be fairer.
There would have to be some compromises, and we might not get to see the big Victorian clubs play each other twice, but times are changing.
Now that we have 18 teams, simply divide the ladder into three sections for 2013. Section A would include teams occupying first to sixth, Section B seventh to 12th, and Section C 13th to 18th (their ladder positions might change after the finals).
Here is how it would work: each team plays each other once over the first 17 rounds. Then over the last five rounds each team play the other teams from their section again.
So say the ladder was decided now and its Round 23, Sydney would play Adelaide, Collingwood, Hawthorn, West Coast and North Melbourne twice next year. And Richmond would come up against St Kilda, Carlton, Fremantle, Essendon and Geelong twice.
To me the only disadvantage this would have on the AFL would be less blockbuster games between clubs like Collingwood, Carlton, Richmond, Essendon and Geelong.
But this should be counter balanced when you think of how many more matches there would be that means something to each club. Every game would be important.
Another rule change that should be brought in is the priority picks for teams that win under four games in a year. Instead of rewarding clubs for losing games, reward the team from Section C that wins the most games in that section.
So say if Gold Coast beat four of their five opponents in the last five games, they deserve to grab another draft pick.
This would help the competition become move even, exciting, and just more riveting for the AFL and its legion of fans.
We have to change something in order to return the AFL to a fair and honest game, where the best teams finish top four, and teams like Adelaide and North Melbourne don’t get easy wins over the whipping boys GCS and GWS. Let’s try and think outside the box.
Possible sections as of Round 20 2012:
Section A: Sydney, Adelaide, Collingwood, Hawthorn, West Coast, North Melbourne.
Section B: Geelong, Essendon, Fremantle, St Kilda, Carlton, Richmond.
Section C: Brisbane, Port Adelaide, West Bulldogs, Melbourne, Gold Coast, Greater Western Sydney.
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- 2012 AFL season, AFL, afl draw, AFL fixture
August 17th 2012 @ 5:53am
AndyMack said | August 17th 2012 @ 5:53am | Report comment
Yeah agree in principle. the draw needs to be fixed.
but your solution seems to favour the team finishing 7th.
think there will always be a cut-off somewhere where teams will aim to grab an advantage.
and the top 4 teams in 1 year may not resemble the top teams the following year. look how far the bulldogs and saints have fallen so quickly.
there must be a solution somewhere, might not be so simple as basing it on last years results though.
You also need to take into account the fixturing. to wait until the conclusion of round 17 before announcing the last 5 round of the comp does not help the teams sell tickets and arrange hospitality etc. I guess there has to be a balance between a fair fixture and a financially viable fixture….
August 17th 2012 @ 7:42am
Milo said | August 17th 2012 @ 7:42am | Report comment
The fairest is of course 34 games, but lets be frank it aint going to happen. It would mean a season starting in mid Feb with a Grand Final on Derby Day.
The next fairest is 17 games with say 3 byes stretching out the season to 20 rounds with four or five weeks of finals. Needs to ensure each team gets a home game against every other over two years. Maybe more realistic – even the NFL season including the Superbowl is compressed into around 24 weeks. Admittedly the market’s massively larger than the AFL and then theres TV and Clubs saying thats not enough for their $$.
Option #3 – Two Divisions based on previous years results. One division is made up of odds the other evens (as far as last year’s ladder position). This would allow for clubs playing each other twice within the division – 16 games – and one cross divisional game – 9 games – making a H&A season of 25 games. Care needs to be taken to ensure an equal amount of home games over the course of say two or three seasons for each team, but it can be done. To make the longer season happen, you need to drop the preseason (which would be great) and allow for two byes meaning a season of 32 weeks rather than the current 27. This could work. While the AFL would say they’d miss the nab cup $$, they could instead have two premium sponsors, each sponsoring a division. Finals based on two top 4s (under the old rules) with the two division GF winners playing off in a Super Grand Final OR simply the top eight teams regardless of division playing fianls on the similar basis as today. Either way same number of finals.
For a longer season, AFL should also consider reducing teams to 16 players with 4 on the bench, which would in turn open the game up more.
Option #4 Similar to today except that teams which play each other twice only play for 2 points per game (1pt for draw). Interestingly if you did the ladder today, there would be very little difference in the positions.
Regardless, whichever way you dress it up, something’s got to change. The draw must not only be fair, it must be perceived to be fair which today it most certainly is not.
August 17th 2012 @ 7:43am
kate said | August 17th 2012 @ 7:43am | Report comment
So I assume that 2013 is based on ladder at end of 2012. Using that theory since Adelaide finished in the bottom of 2011 section, they still would have drawn GC, gws and port twice.
August 17th 2012 @ 8:32am
brendan said | August 17th 2012 @ 8:32am | Report comment
It wont work.What everyone forgets is the revenue from the big clashes at the Mcg normally involving Melbourne teams goes along way in terms of keeping the competition going.There are too many teams 16 is the limit that works with a conference system -2 groups of 8 play each side in your conference twice and the other conferences teams once resulting in a 22 game season.There are nine teams in Melbourne two too many.
August 17th 2012 @ 8:42am
Ian Whitchurch said | August 17th 2012 @ 8:42am | Report comment
We have half a winner.
The code doesnt just need the big Melbourne games, it also needs two Showdowns, two Western Derbys and so on.
But as well as the MCG with those crunchy 70 000 attendees, the AFL also needs all the Melbourne teams there to fill up Ethihad Stadium, which it will soon own.
The big sign of a third WA side will be the AFL contributing equity to a new Perth stadium.
August 17th 2012 @ 10:15am
brendan said | August 17th 2012 @ 10:15am | Report comment
A third WA sides entry to the competition would surely accompany a third Adelaide team to eliminate a possible bye( cant see any side re-locating) and hence a twenty team competition .Therefore a 19 game regular season becomes a distinct possibility where you play each other once followed by an eight week final series between 10 teams .Fitzroy won the flag in 1913 after finishing bottom in a four team competition where obviously all teams made the finals so in a 100 years the game has expanded five fold.I agree the showdown games etc contribute signifigantly to revenue and all i can say is hell im glad i have seen Geelong win three flags because there only going to get harder to win.
August 17th 2012 @ 10:56am
Brewski said | August 17th 2012 @ 10:56am | Report comment
Cant see a 3rd Adelaide team, but a 3rd WA/Perth team would probably have the support and work now.
I can either see a 20 team comp way down the track, or the current 18 team comp with possibly some Melbourne teams moving interstate to Tassie, Nth QLD etc.
August 17th 2012 @ 2:27pm
Siege of Perth said | August 17th 2012 @ 2:27pm | Report comment
I really dont think Perth can support a 3rd side, at least not until it grows more. We are only a city of 1.5 million, take away the children, maybe half the women, then those who cant afford to go and the number of potential fans drop right off. Then maybe only 15-20% of those would actually be interested to going to the games plus then factor in already established loyalties to the Eagles and Dockers. I really dont think it would work at this time. Future expansion needs to be Tasmania and North Queensland. I know WA is more footy focused than North Queensland, but North Queensland dont already have a team of their own, they cant exactly drive down to Brisbane where as in Perth there is already 2 teams. Should look at Canberra too, I suspect it would get decent support considering there is only 1 other sporting team in that city.
August 17th 2012 @ 4:55pm
Brewski said | August 17th 2012 @ 4:55pm | Report comment
Don’t agree, Perth has a pop of around 1.8 million, and a 3rd side would be as strong as any team in either Canberra or Nth QLD.
The 2 sides we have are among the topearners and strongest teams membership/sponsorship wise etc.
A 3rd team out of Mandurah or north in Joondalup would more than pay it’s own way.
That is not to say that areas such as Canberra, Tassie Nth QLD do not deserve a team, but a 3rd Perth team would be as big or bigger than those, and compared to Canberra and Tassie have better prospects for growth.
BTW Canberra has 2 football teams in national comps, the Brumbies and the Raiders….RU and RL.
August 17th 2012 @ 8:36am
Matt F said | August 17th 2012 @ 8:36am | Report comment
I’m not sure how this makes it fairer. If anything it’s far less fair than what we have now. This would almost guarantee that one team from Section C would make finals purely on the back of their weak draw. Keep in mind that if this method was in place for the last couple of season West Coast would have been in Section C last year (they ended up 4th) and Adelaide (currently equal 1st) would be in Section C for this year.
August 17th 2012 @ 11:24am
Bayman said | August 17th 2012 @ 11:24am | Report comment
Matt F,
I admit I haven’t lived there for some time and no longer study the draw but this idea is essentially how the SANFL used to, and maybe still do, run their draw.
In a then ten team comp each team played each other twice in a twenty-two round season. The last four rounds were determined by a team’s finishing position on the ladder from the previous season. Basically, if your team finished in the top half they played three other top finishing teams and one bottom team. If your team finished in the bottom half it was three other bottom teams and one top team.
It was, in effect, a handicap system designed to give all teams a chance to make the finals and not have one team totally dominate – although nobody told Port Adelaide which from the time I started following the SANFL in 1957 to the time I left Adelaide in 1985 missed the finals only about six times.
Given we now have a salary cap and a draft which are both designed to even the playing field it’s probably not a bad idea to follow the SANFL model – or something like it.
The problem, of course, are those blockbuster games which, under this system, would inevitably be reduced to the chagrin of the likes of Collingwood, Essendon, Carlton etc.
We could equally argue that giving these clubs the big games they want, on the big stage, is also an unfair advantage over the rest of the competition. Personally, I fail to see why Collingwood, for example, should have a permanent handicap system working in their favour just because they are a big club.
The argument will no doubt be that the clubs they play benefit financially – and no doubt they do. However, I reckon the supporters of those other clubs would rather a finals appearance, or a premiership than Collingwood’s money.
I guess the bottom line is that whatever system is in place it will advantage some and disadvantage others – and there’s not too much that can be done about that.
August 17th 2012 @ 12:40pm
Matt F said | August 17th 2012 @ 12:40pm | Report comment
I’m all for a fair draw. I’m just saying that the draw proposed in the main article is actually very unfair. It is, as you say, a handicap draw which is designed to penalise the best teams. To me a fair draw would be each team having to play an equal (or as close to as possible) number of good, average and poor teams twice.
For example I would take the draw from the article, or more specifically, the 3 Sections (A, B and C) and take it a step further. I would then mix up those 3 sections into 3 new groups. Each group would contain 2 teams from Section A (the good teams), 2 from Section B (the average teams) and 2 from Section C (the poor teams), to ensure a relatively even spread of teams in each group. Teams would then play each team in their new group twice. That would be a much fairer draw in regards to ensuring that each team has a relatively even draw.
Perhaps, in order to meet the commercial aspects of a draw, you can base which teams from each section go into their new groups based on commercial factors. For example, to ensure that there are 2 Showdowns you put Adelaide (section A) and Port (Section C) into the same group. You then need to fill the rest of that group with 1 more team from section A, 2 from Section B and 1 from Section C.
August 17th 2012 @ 8:46am
Milo said | August 17th 2012 @ 8:46am | Report comment
Actually to Brendans point under a two division system with 9 teams each we have 27 extra games. Even with average attendance of 30k thats a further 800k through the gates, plus sponsorships plus TV. Increased games can lead to decreased quality, so reduce player numbers per game (16 + 4 bench) and poss reduce game time 72 mins plus timeon.
Try focus on what could work rather than what wont.
August 17th 2012 @ 3:11pm
Siege of Perth said | August 17th 2012 @ 3:11pm | Report comment
Cant change the number of players on the field, thats changing the core of the game
August 17th 2012 @ 3:41pm
Milo said | August 17th 2012 @ 3:41pm | Report comment
Garbage. The VFA from which the VFL was formed in 1897 had 16 players on the park right up until the 1980s well before the days of stoppage football. That worked well but the VFL had the more popular teams so eventually it took over with its rules.
August 17th 2012 @ 5:05pm
Ian Whitchurch said | August 17th 2012 @ 5:05pm | Report comment
Dropping the bottom two players off each team also wont do that much for “quality” – you’re still throwing the extra games onto the hamstrings of the top players.
August 18th 2012 @ 6:56am
amazonfan said | August 18th 2012 @ 6:56am | Report comment
Garbage or not, there is IMO no compelling reason to reduce the numbers of players.
I think reducing numbers is a ridiculous idea. The VFA may have had 16 players, but that is a separate competition, and IMO 18 is the perfect number. The interchange bench can (and has been) altered, but the on-field numbers? I’m completely opposed to it, as would be the majority of football fans.
August 17th 2012 @ 9:40am
Gwils said | August 17th 2012 @ 9:40am | Report comment
Fair comp is predicated on the cap and draft, not on the fixture.
August 17th 2012 @ 10:17am
Masher said | August 17th 2012 @ 10:17am | Report comment
Gwils, fair comp is predicated on the cap, draft AND fixture. If one of those isnt working it needs to be fixed. And the point is well made earlier that “The draw must not only be fair, it must be perceived to be fair which today it most certainly is not”.
August 17th 2012 @ 10:08am
Vodka jack said | August 17th 2012 @ 10:08am | Report comment
Impractical as regards knowing the draw in advance for fans esp as the Stae Govt help in Qld/NSW is all about Interstate fns visiting the northern states.I But in esence we have that now with the big V clubs playing each other twice and State derbies. It also means the WA, SA, Qls, NSW derbies might only occur once. Sorry if I have repeated someone else
August 17th 2012 @ 11:09am
Evan said | August 17th 2012 @ 11:09am | Report comment
The AFL isn’t going to go for anything less than 22 games a season so they should structure it like this, similar to the NFL divisional structure:
- 17 games against all teams (in the first 17 rounds)
- 1 double-up against main rival (WCE-Frem, PA-Adel, Syd-GWS, BL-GC, then Melb games Ess-Coll, Carl-Rich, Geel-Haw, Melb-NM, StK-WB)
- Then 4 more matches that rotate over a four-year period, after the four year you will have played the 16 remaining teams an equal number of times.
I also agree with Milo’s theory that the teams that play each other twice only play for 2 points each, but I think it would affect the ladder, as Adelaide have played the expansion teams 4 times compared to Collingwood, Hawthorn and West Coast who play them twice. This alone could be the difference between the Crows playing home finals this year.
August 17th 2012 @ 12:39pm
John Hunt said | August 17th 2012 @ 12:39pm | Report comment
I would split it that way but I would give each club the chance to pick one team (Regardless of their position in the ladder) they wish to play twice and they can swap with a team in their section. That way Collingwood-Carlton Adelaide-Port Adelaide Essendon-Hawthorn clashes would happen twice.