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We are currently in the middle of the NRL and AFL finals series. Unless you live under a rock you probably know of the controversy surrounding the refereeing in the NRL games so far.
If you only believe half of what is being said about conspiracies then there must be a huge doubt as to whether or not the best team will win the grand final – as is supposed to be the case.
But, does the best team always win the GF anyway? What defines the best team?
After playing 24 rounds in the NRL and 22 rounds in the AFL against all comers at home and away, surely the best team is the one that finished first?
Yet in both the NRL and the AFL these teams are labelled as Minor Premiers (albeit an unofficial title in the AFL) and made to play off against half of the competition to prove that they are the best.
They don’t always succeed at doing this and are resigned to being forgotten about. Who remembers the Minor Premiers?
So, who is the best? The team that finished first or the team that wins the GF? Or neither? Is it the team that played great footy all year but stumbled at the last hurdle, or was robbed by the ref?
It’s not an easy question to answer.
At the start, both the league and the Aussie rules comps had no finals and they were introduced, in the AFL at least, for the reason of ‘interest and gate money’ and not because the team that finished first was not deemed to have been the best team.
Since introducing a finals series both the NRL and AFL competitions have changed.
They do not have competitions whereby each team plays each other twice both at home and away as a ‘home and away’ competition should.
This gives rise to questions about the equality of the draw.
Did any of the teams get an advantage by playing the bottom team twice and the top team only once?
You may have a bad day against one team but then do not get to play them again and so you do not get the chance to equal the ledger in the second round.
This raises questions about whether the Minor Premier was the best team during the year.
In a league like the English Premier League (EPL) the Champion is first past the post – there are no finals.
The teams play each team twice which in a 20 team comp is 38 games each.
If the team on top after 38 games is not the best then I don’t think that another couple of games in a finals series will make us any wiser as to who is the best.
This first past the post system might be best at deciding who the best team is but it doesn’t always lead to exciting climaxes to the season even if the winner was the best team.
This year in the NRL would have been an exception. The Roosters v Rabbitohs game in the last round would have been the game that decided who the ultimate winner was and who we remembered.
Sometimes though, that winner could be decided well before the final round and thus robbing the season of an exciting climax.
I have no problems with the EPL system though, it is a long competition with each team’s schedule being equal and the team on top is deservingly declared the winner.
I don’t think that a comp without this equal home and away round robin set up could ever declare the team on top as the champion, though.
I also don’t believe that the team that is regarded as the best team will necessarily win the GF of a competition with a finals series.
I do think though, that we remember the team that won the GF as the best team regardless of what else happened during the year, regardless of refereeing decisions and regardless of whom they played twice and who they only played once.
There is no doubt, whatever system you prefer and whoever you think is the best team, that the finals, whether the best team wins or not, creates a lot of interest and excitement.
Does it have a winner that will go down in history as the best team that year?
Rightly or wrongly, it does that as well.
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