My EPL loving friends claim that the NRL and AFL should adopt a system that anoints the team that finishes on top of the ladder at the end of the season as the premiers.
Or, if Australians have an insatiable desire for a grand final to decide who the victors are, then the top 2 teams on the ladder should play-off for the premiership.
Personally, I think abolishing the NRL and AFL finals to simply have the team ‘first past the post’ declared as the winner, or having the top 2 teams play off for the grand final, is a completely unnecessary change.
Whilst I entirely understand that a team should be rewarded for its consistency throughout the season, I believe the outright premiership is too big of a reward for that consistency. Home ground advantage and a ‘second bite at the cherry’, should you lose in the first week, are ample rewards for the minor premiers.
The additional qualities of ‘mental toughness’ and ‘performance under pressure’ should also be inherent in the team that takes home the silverware. A ‘first past the post’ premier has significantly less opportunity to demonstrate if they have these equally important qualities, as there is less pressure associated with winning a competition when you simply have to win more games than your competitors, rather than winning the important, pressure filled games.
For the basis of my argument, I’ll use the NRL as an example.
Beating the Gold Coast Titans in front of 10,000 fans doesn’t carry the same pressure as beating the Melbourne Storm in a grand final, in front of 90,000 people, with a massive TV audience, a whole week’s build up, and increased media intensity.
No one can argue that a team that merely finishes on top of the ladder is subjected to the same level of pressure as a team that wins the NRL finals.
A true premiership team proves consistent enough over 26 rounds during the season to secure a high finals seeding, and then utilises that advantage to win three or four high pressured, high intensity, win-or-go-home games, and thus be crowned the king of the competition.
Pressure is what I love about finals football. And the ability to handle pressure is what makes a true champion.
But having said that, it’s purely a subjective point of view. Some fans would prefer to award the most consistent team, others would prefer to award the team that plays well at the most pressure filled time of year.
So opinion aside, is there a rational argument on why finals football is a better system of deciding the NRL premiership than the EPL’s system? I think there a few variables to consider.
Length of season
First of all, I’m not deriding the EPL, so football fans should save their vitriol for just a second.
Every EPL team plays 38 games a season. NRL clubs by comparison, only play 24 games, making it a significantly lower sample to ascertain who the best team is. Because EPL clubs play considerably more games, consistency is rightfully the barometer by which teams are measured. A three game losing streak is not pleasant for an EPL team, but you have plenty of time to bounce back. Lose three games in a row in a 24 game ‘first past the post’ season, and your season is practically over.
Equality of the schedule
Every EPL club plays each other an equal amount of times (home and away), whilst the NRL clubs do not, thus making any claims for the minor premier to be the undisputed best side, inherently flawed. Imagine if a team was anointed the premiers, but only had to play Melbourne and Manly once. It would be extremely hard to argue they were the best team in the competition.
Considering that rugby league is a contact sport, the demands of the game dictate that you can’t extend the season to ensure every team plays each other an equal amount of times. Do so, and the injuries will start to pile up, and fatigue will play too important a role.
Impact of injuries
Speaking of injuries, if the NRL moved to a ‘first past the post’ system, you can kiss your season goodbye if you lose your star player for a month – extremely likely considering the physicality of the game. A team could be the best all year, apart from the month when they lost their best player, yet miss out on a chance to win the premiership simply because they finished 3rd.
The representative season
Additionally, it’s not just injuries that prevent you from putting your best team on the park. The top teams in the NRL lose their best players during the representative part of the season, as the ‘Origin drain’ takes effect. As such, you can’t have the premiership decided by the team that finishes first on the ladder, because for 6 weeks the best teams are heavily disadvantaged by not having their best team on the paddock, thus restricting their ability to finish higher on the ladder.
The ‘myth’ of luck
Luck is a quality, though intangible, that most premiers require. One of the biggest criticisms of finals football is that a team can just get ‘lucky’ during the finals. But that’s not exactly accurate. First of all, you still need to qualify for the top 8, which requires a certain amount of consistency in the first place. Secondly, the notion that teams can just ‘get hot’ when it matters and win the premiership is a myth.
Since the NRL’s first season in 1998, there has only been one real underdog winner, Wests Tigers in 2005. But even their ‘underdog’ status is something of historical inaccuracy.
Everyone likes to remember the Tigers as simply getting on a roll in the finals, but they went on a run well before the finals started. It’s not like they were a rank outsider – they finished 4th on the ladder.
In fact, in 13 seasons of NRL action, no premiership team has finished lower than 4th on the ladder during the regular season. Following is the list of premiers and where they finished on the table that particular year:
1998: Brisbane Broncos – 1st
1999: Melbourne Storm – 3rd
2000: Brisbane Broncos – 1st
2001: Newcastle Knights – 3rd
2002: Sydney Roosters – 4th
2003: Penrith Panthers – 1st
2004: Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs – 1st
2005: Wests Tigers – 4th
2006: Brisbane Broncos – 3rd
2007: Melbourne Storm – 1st (stripped of both titles for salary cap cheating)
2008: Manly Sea Eagles – 2nd
2009: Melbourne finished – 4th (stripped of premiership for salary cap cheating)
2010: St George Illawarra Dragons- 1st
It’s also worth noting that many of the above teams that didn’t win the minor premiership were only a few points off doing so.
Therefore, the notion that teams have simply gotten ‘hot’ in the finals and won the premiership over a more deserving side is a complete falsehood. As the list illustrates, every premiership side has finished in the top 4, proving that consistency throughout the season plays an integral role in being the champion club come October.
And when it comes to luck, it’s not confined to the finals anyway. A team can receive just as much vitally influential luck during the regular season, either via a favourable game-deciding referee decision, or by not losing any players to injuries.
Maintaining interest
There are still three rounds to go in the NRL season, yet with the third placed Broncos sitting 6 points behind ladder leaders Melbourne, under an EPL-style system, the premiers and/or grand finalists would have already been decided. That’s what I call ending the season on a whimper, rather than a bang.
A ‘first past the post’, or ‘top 2 grand final’, essentially finishes the season very early for the majority clubs, which translates into losing the interest of the fans. Which means you lose ratings, crowds and revenue. Or in other words, you kill the competition.
And that’s without even calculating in the extreme negative impact not holding a finals series would have on the sport. Finals games are generally sell outs, rate the highest on TV, and generate the most media interest. I therefore struggle to see the logic in removing them.
Status quo
Hopefully the Independent Commission will fix many of the things currently wrong with the NRL.
But, quite simply, finals football isn’t one of them.
You can follow Ryan O’Connell on Twitter @RyanOak
mushi
Guest
I used the roll of the die for simple illustration. But I guess I need to go further for a guy who thinks correlation is his cousin. In any given encounter between two teams we have an expected probability of one team winning over the other. You may have noticed these things called “odds” that these people called “bookies” use on games. So if team A is 80% likely to win and team B is 20% likely in a single match up one team will walk away with a “lucky” outcome (as in higher than expected) and the other with an “unlucky” outcome (lower than expected). Because even if the favourite wins they got a 100% outcome against an expected 80% whilst the other team got a 0% versus a 20%. Luck plays a part in any isolated event. Now over the course of many matches we would expect to see is the results to trend towards the probabilities of 80/20 but this is impossible in one game and not even certain to happen over five. And by my rationale one should have fluked it? Um no. Even someone who failed a basic stats course very badly should know that your sample size is nowhere near enough to give you a representative distribution and that was part of my point about how the current distribution highlights the level of variability rather than explains it away. You keep bringing up the top 4 yes I imagine that if you look at the structure the top 4 is probably where the expected outcome lies, I haven’t done the analysis but clearly neither have you (or if you have you haven’t done it properly). But you keep glossing over that both 3rd and 4th win 3 times as often as 2nd which highlights that knock out finals systems have more variability.
mushi
Guest
Um it is as easy as adding two more games as you finally laid out. Whether or not you believe those two games is the straw that breaks the camel’s back is another point.
mushi
Guest
I did read the article the labelling of luck as a myth is ridiculous esepacilly with the stats he uses to "support" his arguement.
League_Coach101
Guest
The SOO IS a finals series. It's our final time each year to get embarrassed by bloody QLDers!
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
Every club in the EPL knows well in advance that the season lasts 38 matches. So, there are no awards - apart from bragging rights - for winning any one match or any group of matches. There is only one objective - you've got to have the most points after 38 matches and beating the bottom team is worth no more or no less than beating the top team. A bit like the 10k run at the Olympics - a race that lasts 25 laps and you win Gold by being the fastest over 25 laps. End of story. No one knows and no one cares, who ran the fastest lap ... or even the fastest 24 laps.
UK Steve
Guest
I’m not sure that the best team always wins in a “first past the post over a season” format. I remember a few years ago Liverpool beat Man Utd both home and away but finished runner-up to them in the league. You could probably say that if Liverpool had of beaten them in a “Grand Final”, then they would have been the superior team that year. My problem with a first past the post situation is that it disadvantages teams that get off to a poor start or get a spate of injuries. Some people will probably say tough luck.
King Of Swing
Guest
A 'first past the post' system works for European soccer because teams have not only their league title to play for but places in the Champions and Europa League and relegation to avoid. This keeps things interesting for the supporters of most teams for the duration of the season.
AT
Guest
They do pace themselves. Get the highest seed for the finals, then utilize home ground advantage and momentum to get to the final and win.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
I understand what you're trying to say, Ryan, but isn't the whole point of sport being able to pace yourself and control your body so that you are the best at the finish line - where ever the finish line may be? So, a bloke may compete in the 10k and the marathon at the Olympics, but he would have to approach each race differently - he can't go storming out in the marathon as he would in the 10k; just as he couldn't ease his way into the 10k as he would in the marathon. I don't see any issue - as long as BOTH teams have to play under the same conditions.
punter
Guest
The NRL GF is not the highest honour in that sport. The SOO does not have a final series, it the best over 3 games no finals.
punter
Guest
When has the Premier league ever talked about a finals system? By the way, the finals system is not unique to the Australian way. You really need to take those AFL glasses off once in a while to see what the real world really sees.
punter
Guest
Yes they should have a competition where someone not the best will win, now that's novel.
Damo
Guest
If it ain't broke don't fix it
Ryan O'Connell
Expert
mushi, there are 16 teams in the competition. To ensure equality in the scheduling, every team would need to play every other team home and away. That equals 30 games for each club. At present, every club plays 24 games. Should you qualify for the finals, you play an extra 3 to 4 games, which takes you to 27 or 28 games. You believe adding another 2 to 3 games is no issue, but that ignores pre-season and Origin games. One of the players current chief concerns is player burnout, and therefore injury. So it's not as easy as merely adding two more games to the schedule - especially if the NRL should expand. If the season starts earlier than March, or finishes later than October, the weather becomes far too hot for the high impact sport of rugby league. It's something the players union has taken issue with before. As such, the inequality of the schedule suggests that finals are a fairer system to decide a premier.
Ryan O'Connell
Expert
Fussball, I think the physical nature of the NRL and AFL would deem that a 'best of' format would be too much of a toll on the player's bodies. The American sports that you reference are not as high impact, from a physical point of view, as the NRL and AFL. The closest American proxy for those Australian leagues is actually the NFL, and their finals series are elimination, for the sheer fact that any more games would be too much for the player's to handle. In fact, part of the recent NFL lockout had to do with the owners and players disagreeing on more/less games per season. It's the same reason why the rugby league State of Origin games are spread out - the series is so physical, the players need time to recover.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
As a football fan, I'm not in favour of the finals concept. Yes, finals are "pressure situations" b/c the games are virtually a knock-out competition. In football, knock-out competitions exist as a separate to the League competition. Whilst the best team will always win in a "first past the post over a season" format; the best team may not always prevail in a knock-out competition. And, for those who like the "finals concept" - why only have one Final to determine the Champions? In the USA, the premier leagues for basketball, ice hockey & baseball involve multiple "grand finals" to decide the champions. Do those who favour a finals system suggest we have "best of formats" to determine the AFL & NRL winner?
Ryan O'Connell
Expert
Mushi, I never, ever suggested that luck must be non-existent in premiers. On the contrary, I actually state that most premiers require it. In any event, your comparison of rugby league with a die completely overlooks the fact that the teams that finish in the top 4, normally finish in the top 4 for a reason, not luck. Rolling a die is completely up to chance. Pitting two teams against each other is not left up to chance – it’s heavily dependent upon one of the top 4 teams actually being a better team. By your rationale, one of the bottom 4 team should have at least fluked a premiership via sheer ‘roll of the dice’. But they haven’t. . .
turbodewd
Guest
I can guarantee this will not affect crowds or ratings in anyway. Its a pointless change that would do no harm nor tangible good. The best 2 teams will end up in the GF anyway.
Andre
Guest
why not have both a 'mini championship' whereby the leader at the end of the home & away season wins something, then has the opportunity to go for a 'double' by getting the premiership as well?
AT
Guest
I think you'll find, if you read the article, that more than just 'luck' was covered as a reason for keeping the finals.