- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Here is a hint. Consider the MCG Oval for a moment, it is 160m long x 141m wide.
Fat wide MCG equivalent grounds.
Outside of the MCG home teams of Collingwood, Hawthorn, Melbourne, and Richmond, only the Lions and the Suns have MCG equivalent grounds. If you stretch your imagination, perhaps you could also sneak in the Swans. The result, these teams are used to playing a fat wide ground, expansive style of football.
• MCG benchmark – 160m x 141m (Collingwood, Hawthorn, Melbourne, and Richmond)
• Gabba – 156m x 138m (Brisbane Lions)
• Metricon – 160m x 134m (Gold Coast Suns)
• SCG – 149m x 136m (Sydney Swans)
(Note: Dimensions from online source and may differ slightly from actual dimensions)
The only clubs to have ever won triple premierships are Melbourne, Collingwood, the Brisbane Lions and Hawthorn. Not too surprising given the expansive MCG home ground equivalent advantage.
The next chestnut is more intriguing, and one that could open endless hours of debate. Give clubs playing style is perfected on their home turf, would these teams had won their triple premierships if they played on an MCG deck with skinnier playing dimensions?
Let’s travel around the grounds to better understand what the other teams in the AFL are up against.
Skinny ground
First on the road tour, we travel to Etihad which is the same length as the MCG, but far skinnier. To state the obvious, a skinnier ground width means a tighter style of play. Does this translate to an MCG grand final home ground advantage? Not so much.
• Etihad – 159.5 metres x 128.8 metres (Carlton, Essendon, North Melbourne, St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs)
Long and skinny grounds
Next, we travel around the country. Interestingly, four of the top five teams currently on the AFL ladder have arguably been wasting most of the year perfecting play on long skinny decks.
Does this translate to an MCG advantage? Sorry, probably not. Particularly if an MCG equivalent home ground team makes the grand final.
• Adelaide Oval – 167m x 123m (Port Adelaide and Adelaide Crows)
• Simonds Stadium – 170m x 115 m (Geelong Cats)
• Spotless – 164 metres x 123 m (GWS Giants)
• Perth Stadium – 165m x 130m (West Coast Eagles, Fremantle Dockers)
What to do? Respect and rewards need to be given to the highest qualifying team so they have some sort of advantage on grand final day. After all, the AFL season is a marathon and the supporters, players, teams invest a lot of blood, sweat, tears and not to mention cold hard cash. What they don’t expect is to be given a raw deal on the biggest day of all at the G.
If I was king… the highest ranked teams in the AFL Finals Series would always be able to enforce their home ground playing width in the AFL finals when playing at the MCG. And not just the width, but the shape of their home ground boundary.
The length of the MCG grand final however should be retained at 160m. It is difficult to physically move goal posts.
Outside of the AFL grand final, the default length wherever possible for an AFL game should be 160m. This means teams might bring the goal posts in by two to five metres. Still close enough for fans to smell and breath the game.
These clubs can then do something they have never done since entering the AFL, perfect the 160m x home ground width style of play in the knowledge that should they perform well during the season, this really would translate to some form of an advantage come the AFL grand final.
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.