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How should the AFL’s pre-season work? It’s a question that’s been asked many times, but has again come under attention after the farcical scenes in last Thursday’s NAB Challenge match.
It was a night of injury carnage for Richmond, Tiger players dropping like flies.
But unwilling to change his planned rotations, coach Damien Hardwick at times had 15 players on the field and the Tigers were no match for Port Adelaide.
Hardwick approached the AFL’s Football Operations Manager Mark Evans and asked for the game to be called off early; but the request was denied. Evans’ reason for refusing the request was telling – the game had to continue because of the broadcasters.
Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley was sympathetic; and went further by calling for the pre-season to be shortened. “Personally I believe three (games) is too many. You don’t need three to get ready. Most teams throughout the competition have used one of those games to field a really inexperienced side.”
We’ve already seen some shortening of the pre-season. From 2011 to 2013, we saw each team playing two two-quarter matches, two full matches and then a final or an additional trial game.
In 2014, we went to the ’18 games in 18 days’ model, with a game every night. Not good for attendances, but it was meant to be good for the broadcasters. However, the ratings didn’t materialise. With a long gap between the end of those matches and the split-round season opening, additional matches had to be arranged to keep match fitness up.
In 2015 and 2016, we’ve had each team playing three matches. No ladder, no cup, no winners.
And seemingly no context.
Mark Evans has indicated that the AFL is open to shortening the pre-season. “If (clubs) believe that preparation can be done in fewer games, we would deliver that.”
Evans even indicated that if the clubs were agreeable, the pre-season could be done away with completely. “If they felt the season could be extended forward and have no matches as preparation, we could consider that.”
So why are trial games played now? It’s about giving players experience, allowing the youngsters to press their claims for senior selection, and testing out game plans.
But can this be done internally without playing against other clubs? Ken Hinkley believes it can.
“You can do plenty of combative stuff, you can do plenty of structural stuff. The thing you can’t do is go game style against game style. But if you’ve got it wrong by the end of February or March, it’s probably not fixable.”
Match simulation and intra-club matches are a big part of pre-season training, and likely to become even more so.
A shorter pre-season, or no pre-season, would be a change. But would also present the AFL with a window of opportunity to fix another on-going issue.
The AFL season proper doesn’t start until late March, in 2015 it didn’t start until April. The NRL gets three to four weeks’ head start, which makes it hard particularly in the northern states for the AFL clubs to get publicity.
It’s an issue that’s been discussed before. Andrew Demetriou in his time as AFL CEO expressed his desire to start the season earlier.
“I don’t think it is sustainable for our competition. We are four weeks behind the NRL and the Super Rugby competitions and that makes it very hard for the two clubs in this state to generate any oxygen. We have to do something about it.”
It’s particularly an issue for GWS Giants, as Spotless Stadium is unavailable for several weeks during and after the Royal Easter Show. Last year and this year, the Giants don’t get a home game in Sydney until Round 6. Although they play a couple of their Canberra games during that time, it’s a long time to wait for a proper home game.
With a late Easter in 2017, they could be waiting even longer unless the season starts early enough to get a game or two in before the agriculturalists move in.
And if there’s no pre-season, what happens with the broadcasters, who were the reason Thursday’s game couldn’t be cut short? The broadcasters’ interest in the game was minimal – there was no free-to-air coverage and the Fox Footy coverage only rated 90k and was belted in the ratings by an NRL game played for premiership points. That was for a game that only 6,584 people bothered to attend.
Cutting the NAB Challenge and extending the home-and-away season to 24 home-and-away games would be a net reduction of one game for each club. But the advantages would be significant.
An extra home game for each club would increase the value of memberships and sponsorship packages. Crowds and TV ratings would increase as there’d be more matches which mean something.
Wear and tear on the players may require two byes to be inserted into the home-and-away season, but we’ve done that before. I don’t see that as being a problem.
And the issue of oxygen in the northern states would be reduced, with the earlier start to the season bringing it in line with the NRL’s.
Implementing the earlier start could be problematic for the next two seasons. The Junction Oval redevelopment, which will enable cricket to vacate the MCG in March, won’t be finished until 2018. And the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games will see Metricon out of action in March.
But there’s ways around it. And the net benefit for the game would be felt for years to come.
Replacing the pre-season Mickey Mouse games with more of the real stuff. Hinkley can certainly see the potential. “I reckon it would be flat out, anything could happen.”
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