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Random musings about the AFL finals

Liam Duggan. (Photo by Daniel Carson/AFL Media/Getty Images)
Roar Guru
18th September, 2017
5

At the start of September, who would have bet that West Coast would be the last ‘bottom four’ side remaining alive in the AFL finals?

So many things in life and sport look obvious in retrospect. Like the effect of the mental exhaustion that matched the physical exhaustion the Eagles suffered after the trip to and from Adelaide, followed by the cross-nation journey for perhaps the team with the oldest core in the league.

I’m not specifically a West Coast fan, but I hope the taste of the loss at Spotless Stadium doesn’t wash away the savouring of that famous extra-extra-time victory seven days previously for Eagles fans.

Similarly, in retrospect, considering that Sydney had seemingly been playing elimination finals since May, it’s not unreasonable to presume that they might lose one somewhere along the way (besides to Hawthorn, I mean). It was just the size of the loss was shocking.

Great players are great players no matter what. Make Patrick Dangerfield a full-time scoring forward, and he’d challenge for the Coleman. Make him your ruckman, and he’d be winning 60 per cent of his hit-outs. Make him your key defender and Alex Rance would have a challenger for his informal title. Make him your player-coach and Chris Scott would probably willingly slide over to assistant. (Maybe not.)

In fact, it would be fascinating to see a team filled with each of those multi-talented superstars flipping positions against, for example, a mid-level AFL team. Put Lance Franklin in the ruck for awhile. Let Nat Fyfe play in the goal square. Have Dustin Martin and Rance trade positions for a while.

The AFL is one of the very few sports in the world where pure athleticism is the first requirement at nearly every position. Sure, you generally want your tall blokes up front or jumping ruck, but footy’s not like basketball or American football, where spots are so specialised that if you can’t play the position you’re physically designed for, you’re out of a job.

Back in March, the three teams everyone thought would be jockeying for the premiership right about now were the Western Bulldogs, Sydney Swans, and GWS Giants. Instead, it’s Adelaide and Richmond who have the inside track right now.

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The Crows were a consensus ‘second tier’ contender, usually falling from fourth to sixth in most forecasts, and almost everyone had the Tigers in the ‘find a new coach’ sweepstakes, rather than hosting a preliminary final at the MCG this weekend.

Geelong were somewhere alongside Adelaide in the prediction lottery, happy if they made the second week of finals. And just a week ago, the Giants were written off by anyone who watched their level of determination at Adelaide Oval (or lack thereof). But after an 11-goal win at home, it seems their prognosis has at least softened, if not partially flipped.

Dylan Shiel GWS Giants AFL 2017 Finals

(Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Media/Getty Images)

Think you can predict next year’s champion in advance? We can’t even forecast this year’s at this point!

This is the week that the Battle for the Bye combatants have been waiting 51 weeks for. If Adelaide and Richmond come out suffering from the symptoms of having played just one game over the previous 26 days, everyone who sides with Alastair Clarkson will have all the ammunition they need, whether the Crows and/or Tigers end up winning narrowly or not.

Conversely, Gillon McLachlan must be secretly hoping for the peace that only two dominant home wins can bring the proponents of the post-Round 23 bye week. I don’t have a dog in this fight – I see plenty of pros and cons to the extra week – but proof that it’s harmful to the teams winning the qualifying finals would change my mind, and presumably everyone else’s.

Since the current format of two qualifying finals (pitting the top four seeds against each other with the double chance) and two elimination finals (placing seeds 5-8 in a winner moves on, loser goes home scenario) began in 2000, excluding last year’s bye week experiment, there have been 16 seasons of finals.

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In 12 of those 16, the two teams who won the qualifying final (not always seeds one and two, but most often) also won their preliminary finals and met in the grand final. In the other four, one of the two teams won. That’s why last year’s 0-2 record was so striking – it had never happened before. If it happens again this year…

One of the greatest dramatic features of competitive sport – maybe the greatest feature – is the consistent opportunity for redemption. Shakespeare has nothing on the sport of football, in any of its forms, and that’s in part due to the weekly nature of the competition.

Six days off provides time for the media speculation to run rampant, and provide every possibility for the next move forward. A humiliating defeat one week can be avenged the next, except in the playoffs, where one loss ends your dream and haunts you throughout the off-season.

At least, that’s the way it is in my home country. No American sport (to my knowledge) incorporates the ‘double chance’ that Australia does in finals series like the AFL. Both Geelong and GWS embarrassed themselves in their qualifying finals: Geelong’s fourth quarter collapse was surpassed only by the lack of pressure around the ball by the Giants for the entirety of their visit to Adelaide.

Within any single-elimination format, that would have left a rotten taste. The Cats were tied for the best win-loss record in the league; the Giants, just a half-game behind.

Patrick Dangerfield Rory Sloane Geelong Cats Adelaide Crows AFL 2017

(Photo by James Elsby/AFL Media/Getty Images)

But in the AFL format, redemption was only a week away. And if either of them happen to reach the grand final and force a rematch against the team that defeated them three weeks earlier (either Geelong and Richmond, or GWS and Adelaide), that full-circle story of redemption on the game’s highest stage will be a huge talking point next week.

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Over those past 16 years of the current format (excluding last year), as mentioned before, there were 12 where that redemption story abruptly ended by prelim finals week, as the two teams who won the qualifiers won again in the prelim final (usually facing the opposite opponent from the top four).

In those other four seasons, however, exactly one team earning the bye week won, and because of the format that meant there was a rematch of a qualifying final in each of those grand finals (2003, 2005, 2006, and 2015).

Every time, the team which lost the qualifying final won the grand final. That includes the third of Brisbane’s three-peat, Hawthorn’s romp over Fremantle in the third of their trilogy, and the amazing quartet of finals games between Sydney and West Coast in 2005-06. (I hadn’t remembered that the scores of the games in ’06 were both 85-84: in the Swans’ favour first, then the Eagles.)

It almost seems like the scenario lends itself to dramatising the revenge or redemption angle – the two three-peats from ageing teams exerting their experience and poise to return to glory; the Swans reaching the long-lost pinnacle in 2005 and the Eagles redeeming themselves after their loss to Barry Hall and friends the next year.

Will the Giants overcome their travel bug and then face the Adelaide team that dominated them twice this season? Will the Cats avoid the Dangerfield revenge and move on to face the Tiger team that obliterated them at their supposed home three weeks prior? Or will the home teams hold serve as they have 12 of the past 17 years.

Or, will it be like last year, and the visitors who haven’t had the long break win and we have a rematch of the Round 23 battle between Geelong and GWS for all the marbles?

That’s the fun of this time of year. The possibilities…

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