- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
In the shadows of the last of the AFL ‘bye rounds’, the football world drew a collective sigh a relief. Head office still scratches its head around how best to manage them; but is it time the AFL put the onus back on clubs to facilitate a week off for their players?
Round 13 in particular suffered from some lacklustre games, which meant airwaves and newspaper columns were dedicated to the annual argument around the best ways to handle the bye. There have been several ideas on how the AFL allocates a week off to all teams throughout the year.
It seems an impossible task to integrate a bye into the season, while maintaining an equality of the fixture and the engagement of a fan-base with a short attention span.
Most people don’t like it when there are no games on a weekend, some don’t even like it when there are only six games on a weekend, very few were a fan of the one stand-alone ‘blockbuster’ game. Above all else, no one likes it when their team doesn’t play.
So the question becomes – why does the entire club need a rest at once? Why can’t we have a 23-round season and mandate that any one player can’t play more than 22 games? How and when they take their break is an internal decision.
From the individual player’s perspective, it would give them greater flexibility to determine when a week off is needed. Take Isaac Heeney for example; he had a delayed start to the year through glandular fever.
By the time Sydney’s bye came around he had played only six games and was just beginning to get continuity in his body. Heeney and the Swans might have preferred to bank his break for the back end of the year as they gear towards a tilt at finals.
(AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Bye rounds also create odd preparation obstacles for clubs to deal with. Numbers aren’t conclusive either way as to whether teams coming off the bye have performed as expected, and it does impact different teams in different ways depending on the demographic of the list.
What this solution would remove is anomalies of a team coming off a seven-day break playing a team coming off a 15-day break. Situations like this must have an impact on the outcome of games, however minor.
Fans will be spared the ‘torture’ of having to wait a whole fortnight for their team to play again. The AFL too, can boast to broadcasters that all 23 rounds have a full quota of nine matches to sell, securing a bigger rights deal for the game.
While you could argue that on any given week it will be a watered down version of the best 22, you might also argue that most players on the list will be in line for a game at one point or another, meaning more early exposure for kids and opportunities for other depth players.
If someone comes in and performs it would create more options for a coach going forward. Lynden Dunn was promoted for the resting Ben Reid in Round 6 and has not missed a game since. Cam Pederson and Liam Jones are similar case studies.
It also adds an element of strategy in how a group is managed throughout the season. Similar to a club like Chelsea rotating a squad through Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup fixtures, AFL clubs would need to pinpoint games that they deem safe enough to rest stars.
What sort of the by-play would be created this weekend if Richmond decided to give Alex Rance the weekend off for its clash with Carlton? Twitter would go into meltdown.
(Photo: Justine Walker/AFL Media)
The bye of course is not just time for players to take a break – with coaches and support staff also recharging the batteries. Again, the opportunity arises for others to fill the breach and play a role.
Could a senior coach take the week off, giving the club a chance to assess how the football program runs without its main cog? An assistant coach could also get a chance in the hot seat, potentially fast tracking their development.
There will be countless other considerations to this that haven’t been fleshed out in this article – whether this is a practical solution or not remains to be seen. But given the current ‘best approaches’ to this issue by the AFL, this seems worthy of investigation.
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.