Time to scrap the AFL grand final replay

“It’s probably going to take this for the AFL to change the rules, it’s an absolute joke. There’s no way it should be decided after another game, guys come here for a win or loss and that’s what we should be leaving with.”

Those were the telling words of Collingwood premiership captain Nick Maxwell in a post-game interview following the drawn 2010 AFL grand final against St Kilda.

Five years down the track there has been no alteration to the rules – if a draw was to occur in another grand final, the reaction among many would remain the same; confused, annoyed and lacking spirit.

Last week all eyes were on the NRL grand final, an all-Queensland slog that has since been touted by many as the best grand final of all time, following a finish not even JK Rowling could have scripted.

With the scores at 16-12 in favour of the Broncos with just one minute of time left on the clock, the Cowboys had five tackles to muster up something extraordinary, a match-saving try from nowhere.

Just as it seemed the Broncos had done enough to salvage the game and claim their seventh premiership, a last-ditch effort from the Cowboys opened up an opportunity for Kyle Feldt to score right on the siren. It left the scores tied up at 16-16, giving arguably the greatest player of the modern era, Johnathan Thurston, the chance to snatch victory by converting from the sideline.

If anybody was going to kick it was going to be JT, and after a good four minutes of setting up, Thurston took his kick, a right-to-left twirler that hit the post!

An agitated Thurston roared, as he knew the game was now anyone’s with golden point the deciding factor.

Feldt delivered the extra-time kickoff, and Ben Hunt fumbled the high ball, allowing the Cowboys the opportunity to win the game through a JT field goal.

Despite AFL fans often insisting rugby league “requires no skill”, even the great Ted Whitten would have to concede that the NRL came out on top this grand final weekend.

It opens up the argument, should the AFL alter its traditional law and allow a drawn grand final to be decided by extra time?

The entire build-up to grand final week is based on the idea that come Saturday night, around 5pm, there is going to be a newly crowned AFL premier. Despite a close contest and the tense final moments of the game, in 2010 the day reached an anti-climax, as everyone was forced to wait another week for a result.

The players were forced to rehash everything again, intense training sessions, team meetings, sleepless nights, stress, and of course the dreaded Thursday night team-selection, which had some players thinking “If only”.

Admittedly, a drawn AFL grand final is a rare occurrence, and there is a high chance we may not witness another. In 116 AFL/VFL grand finals there has been just three draws, the first being in 1948 between Melbourne and Essendon, followed by the 1977 affair between North Melbourne and Collingwood, and of course the 2010 draw.

In fact of 14,786 games played since 1897, there have been just 154 draws overall. That’s 0.0104 per cent of contests being drawn. However there should still be a clear plan in place if this transpires again.

In the 2011 pre-season the AFL commission reviewed its rules an decided the rule should remained unchanged due to tradition. The ‘tradition’ excuse should be left in sarcastic quotation marks as it is obvious that the AFL have left the rule untouched due to potential monetary benefits. The 2010 replay made the AFL approximately $60 million from ticket sales alone.

The fans and specifically club members also have to be taken into consideration when looking at this, because at the end of the day they are the stakeholders who make this game of ours the greatest in the world.

Diehard fans travel the country and potentially the world to witness their beloved side in a grand final, spending up to $1500 for a ticket, yet if the scores are tied at the end of the fourth quarter they leave the MCG with empty pockets and the shallow feeling of no result. Understandably there are no refunds possible and no free or even discounted ticket prices for the following week.

Footy trips, weddings and parties will all need to be either postponed or cancelled, meaning more money down the drain for fans, officials, ground staff and even the players.

What makes even less sense is that there are currently three separate scenarios for a drawn game throughout the season:

• In the minor rounds, if the scores are level at the end of the match, no further on-field action will transpire and each team will split the premiership points (two each).

• A game during the first three weeks of the finals cannot finish in a draw; if two teams are tied at the end of regulation time, five-minute periods of extra time will be played until a winner is decided.

• If the grand final is drawn, the match is replayed on the following weekend. If the grand final replay is also drawn at full-time, extra time is played.

The second-period ruling seems the most appropriate for all situations, as each side gets an extended period of time to prove themselves as worthy winners.

Draws have occurred in two minor finals in the past 20 years; the 1994 qualifying final between North Melbourne and Hawthorn, and more recently the 2007 semi-final between West Coast and Collingwood. In the former contest the Roos came out on top 3.5 to 0.0, while the Pies dominated the latter’s extra time, 3.3 to 0.2, to run out victors.

If a replay is the appropriate next step after a drawn grand final, then why do the rules state that if the replay is drawn at full-time, extra-time will then be played? Basically, it takes the AFL another entire week of unnecessary anticipation to realise that extra-time would have been the more viable option in the first place.

By no means has the NRL got the perfect system in place, with the golden-point system arguably too easy. Maybe they should be looking at a try being needed, rather than just a field goal. This prevents pure luck coming into the equation, while also minimising the impact of a skill error. But at least their rules lead to a new premier being crowned on grand final day.

The AFL need to take a good hard look at the current laws of the game and implement some kind of extra time on grand final to make sure we are guaranteed a victor on the biggest day of the year. It’s a better proposal for the fans, staff, coaches and of course players.

So what’s stopping this ‘non-profit’ organisation from changing the rules and preventing September disappointment?