The Roar
The Roar

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Is the move towards three conferences a good one?

Roar Guru
21st September, 2015
25

Gillon McLachlan’s proposal to reform the home-and-away fixtures by splitting the teams into three conferences of six teams after 17 rounds doesn’t address the integrity issue.

This raised its head again when the Dockers and Roos rested players in Round 23 this year.

How will Gill’s proposal prevent a team, guaranteed of finishing in the eight, from resting players if they cannot improve their position on the ladder prior to the finals?

It doesn’t.

There have been many suggestions from people within and outside the industry as to how you address this issue – from having a general bye for all teams prior to the finals to awarding eight points for a win in the final round.

I agree with none of these.

Supporters would be up in arms if they missed a week of football, and awarding bonus points for the last round is a huge advantage to those sides at the top of the ladder drawn against a side languishing at the bottom of the ladder, who are probably in a mind to tank and improve their draft picks in any case.

The solution to the problem is so simple that even Blind Freddie can see it.
Instead of playing 18 games over three rounds in the middle of the season, play 9 games (split 5 and 4) over two rounds in the middle and at the end of the year.

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This way every team will have a week off before the finals.

This solution can be refined even further to ensure the top eight teams are drawn to play in the second last round, so that they get the week off immediately prior to the finals instead of the second last week. This would mean that the draw for the final two rounds is not made until after Round 23, and as many of the top eight sides are scheduled to play in the second last week of the season.

The AFL shouldn’t have a problem with this due to the fact that under his proposal the draw for the last five rounds would also have to be left until after Round 17.

While on this point, if Gill is comfortable leaving the draw for the last five rounds until after Round 17, then we can look at reforming the draw even further by eliminating the vagaries and inequality by taking into account where each team finished previously.

Teams that finished in the top six positions in the previous year’s season are drawn to play two teams that also finished in the top six positions on the ladder. Then they will play two teams that finished in the next six positions on the ladder, and finally one team that finished in the bottom six positions on the ladder.

The flaw with this system is that a team’s performance can improve or deteriorate from year to year. And, so, a top six team could be drawn to play a bottom six team from last year that has improved their position on the ladder this year. A case in point being the Western Bulldogs who went from 13th last year to sixth this year.

Why not leave the draw for the final six rounds, if my proposal is adopted, until after Round 18 and thereby ensuring the draw is as even as possible?

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