Geelong's David Wojcinski and Brad Ottens after winning the NAB Cup. Slattery Images
The NAB Cup is now less than three weeks away, which is welcome news for us footy-starved fans. An exciting season is just around the corner, and the pre-season competition offers our first taste of it all.
For all the criticism the competition cops, it will always have that going for it.
But for the first time in a long time, we’ll be going into the NAB Cup not knowing if it will be back a year later.
Next year will see the introduction of the Gold Coast, and Greater Western Sydney will enter a year later. With the added teams, the current format is pretty much unworkable.
On top of this, the likely expansion of the home and away season because of these new teams – a 24-week season has been heavily mooted – provides another complication. It could squeeze out room in the calendar for any more than two or three weeks of pre-season matches.
Even one of the competition’s biggest advocates, AFL chief Andrew Demetriou, has admitted it may come to an end.
Responding to a question a couple of years ago about whether the new teams spelt the end of the tournament, the league boss said: “I would think so.”
And as if the bells weren’t already ringing, NAB’s five-year partnership with the AFL conveniently wraps up in 2010.
So things aren’t looking bright for the future of the pre-season event, at least in its current set-up.
Some supporters wouldn’t mind hearing this, of course. A lot of people view the tournament as unnecessary.
But realistically speaking, there’s always going to be pre-season matches. There’d be very few professional sports leagues out there that don’t have them in one format or another. It’s no different for the AFL, and there’s no way these matches will disappear completely.
It just may be that the current system of holding the matches as part of a tournament can’t go on.
So what options are there?
A knockout system like the present set-up simply cannot work with 18 teams over four weeks, let alone anything shorter than that.
The only way it seemingly could is if you take two sides out, like the previous year’s grand finalists, for example, who would in theory have shorter pre-seasons than the other clubs. But that could make things a bit messy.
Perhaps all we’ll see in future years is three weeks of practice matches and a ladder at the end of it – with tie-breaking done according to a team’s percentage determining a winner.
Or perhaps all we’ll see in future years is just practice matches – nothing more, nothing less. No frills. No competition. No overall winner.
It’d be boring, and you wouldn’t think it’d get the sort of TV coverage we’re used to, but it’s a genuine possibility.
One gets the feeling the AFL may comment more once the tournament begins, but right now, it’s hard to tell what may happen.
So you might as well enjoy this year’s NAB Cup. It could be your last.
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