News AFL to overhaul the draft, discuss changes to Academy and FS bid matching

[giantroo]

 

[threenewpadlocks]

It’s complete b.s. that most Vic teams play 18 games in their home state, and the “bigger” clubs whinge about having to travel.

You do realise that home teams cannot prevent away fans from accessing the game if their opposition is also in Melbourne? For every away game that they don't travel there's a home game that there's no home ground advantage.

Dogs played two home games this year where there were more opposition fans in the stands than their own fans. That is untrue for any of the 11 home games played by any of the 9 non-Melbourne teams.

 

[teagueyubeauty]

[emoji6][emoji6][emoji6]" data-quote="Elixuh" data-source="post: 0" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch">

MCG grand final every year is one of the biggest inequalities in the game given the entire aim is to win flags

MCG is only a home ground advantage against interstate sides, it’s as neutral as it gets outside of that scenario.

Interstate sides can whinge all they want about travel, the facts are they have a bonafide legitimate home ground advantage for at least games a year which is not something Melbourne based clubs have


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

 

[briztoon]

You do realise that home teams cannot prevent away fans from accessing the game if their opposition is also in Melbourne? For every away game that they don't travel there's a home game that there's no home ground advantage.

Dogs played two home games this year where there were more opposition fans in the stands than their own fans. That is untrue for any of the 11 home games played by any of the 9 non-Melbourne teams.

like that’s an actual inequality.

Oh, no there’s opposition fans at our game.

You’ve obviously never been to a GWS or GC home game.

FMD if you believe that’s an actual inequality.

What it is, is a reflection of your club and supporter base within the competition.

Question: Do all those opposition fans attending one of your home games add money to your clubs coffers?

 

[threenewpadlocks]

like that’s an actual inequality.

Oh, no there’s opposition fans at our game.

You’ve obviously never been to a GWS or GC game.

FMD if you believe that’s an actual inequality.

What it is, is a reflection of your club and supporter base within the competition.

Well yeah, because research consistently shows that home fans doing home fans things is the main reason that home ground advantages exist

And yes, GWS and GC having low crowds impacts their home ground advantage. But at least we can say that's due to being a small club. It's not due to the AFL determining that if you buy an Western Bulldogs membership with General Admission access, and a Essendon membership with away game general admission access, and an AFL membership with General Admission access, you have equal priority to scan your barcode into a Western Bulldogs home game, despite the fact that common sense or fairness in terms of home ground advantage would dictate that the Western Bulldogs members should be given the opportunity to claim a ticket before the Essendon members do.

 

[bzparkes]

It takes as long to get to Noosa from Brisbane by car as it does to get from Brisbane to Melbourne via plane and you’d call that a relaxing weekend day trip. Brisbane to Sydney via plane is the same as Brisbane to GC via bus.

I didn't realise planes these days picked players up directly from their homes and dropped them off at the stadium on Game day, before picking them up at straight after the game and dropping them off back home.

News to me.

 

[GC2015]

MCG is only a home ground advantage against interstate sides, it’s as neutral as it gets outside of that scenario.

Interstate sides can whinge all they want about travel, the facts are they have a bonafide legitimate home ground advantage for at least games a year which is not something Melbourne based clubs have

Not it's not. When Sydney played West Coast in the GF, the Eagles were required to travel around three times further than the Swans in order to get to Melbourne.

I disagree with you that MCG tenants have the same level of home ground advantage/disadvantage at Marvel and vice versa (regardless of opposition). If you play at a venue more often than another club then you're going to hold an advantage when you face off at that venue. Look at how much Richmond struggled at Marvel when they were good. Even Collingwood have had some poor performances at Marvel in recent years.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Not it's not. When Sydney played West Coast in the GF, the Eagles were required to travel around three times further than the Swans in order to get to Melbourne.

People assume that that's a huge difference though, when there's no particular evidence that that's anywhere near comparable to (for example) the Western Bulldogs having one of their 11 home games for the year be early this year against Essendon, played at Essendon's home ground, with 3 Essendon fans in the crowd for every 2 Dogs fans, which influenced the umpires, gave the players on the ground the feeling of it being an Essendon home ground, and "took away" one of the Dogs' 11 home games for the year.

At least when the Eagles play their 11 home games for the year - accepting that they do fly in the air a bit - they have a statistically proven advantage of a strong home crowd and dominating umpiring helping them.

 

[GC2015]

People assume that that's a huge difference though, when there's no particular evidence that that's anywhere near comparable to (for example) the Western Bulldogs having one of their 11 home games for the year be early this year against Essendon, played at Essendon's home ground, with 3 Essendon fans in the crowd for every 2 Dogs fans, which influenced the umpires, gave the players on the ground the feeling of it being an Essendon home ground, and "took away" one of the Dogs' 11 home games for the year.

At least when the Eagles play their 11 home games for the year - accepting that they do fly in the air a bit - they have a statistically proven advantage of a strong home crowd and dominating umpiring helping them.

That's not always the case for non-Vic teams, though. For example, if you had attended any Suns v Collingwood game over the last decade or so then you would know over 50% of the crowd (probably more like 75%) was actually wearing black + white and cheering on the Pies. Same thing happened with Richmond when they were good a few years ago and we've seen around 50/50 splits against teams like Essendon, Hawthorn & Carlton. So not only do the Suns have to travel interstate 13+ times a year to play in venues where they are heavily outnumbered in terms of the crowd, we also get outnumbered/equalised in as many as 50% of our home games on the Gold Coast because the big Victorian clubs have a good following up here and the Brisbane fans are now more willing to travel south to negate the home ground advantage we once had at Carrara.

The only times you can guarantee a crowd advantage for the Suns is when we play on the Gold Coast against non-Vic teams or the smaller Vic teams like North, St Kilda and the Dogs. So at the moment we're looking at about 5-6 games a year in which there's a true home ground advantage for the Suns. That's the reality that no one ever talks about when they try to argue Melbourne teams lose their home ground advantage because they have to play other Melbourne teams through the year and conveniently ignore the travel inequalities that exist.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

That's not always the case for non-Vic teams, though. For example, if you had attended any Suns v Collingwood game over the last decade or so then you would know over 50% of the crowd (probably more like 75%) was actually wearing black + white and cheering on the Pies. Same thing happened with Richmond when they were good a few years ago and we've seen around 50/50 splits against teams like Essendon, Hawthorn & Carlton. So not only do the Suns have to travel interstate 13+ times a year to play in venues where they are heavily outnumbered in terms of the crowd, we also get outnumbered/equalised in as many as 50% of our home games on the Gold Coast because the big Victorian clubs have a good following up here and the Brisbane fans are now more willing to travel south to negate the home ground advantage we once had at Carrara.

The only times you can guarantee a crowd advantage for the Suns is when we play on the Gold Coast against non-Vic teams or the smaller Vic teams like North, St Kilda and the Dogs. So at the moment we're looking at about 5-6 games a year in which there's a true home ground advantage for the Suns. That's the reality that no one ever talks about when they try to argue Melbourne teams lose their home ground advantage because they have to play other Melbourne teams through the year and conveniently ignore the travel inequalities that exist.

Sure, but there's nothing preventing fewer Pies and Richmond fans attending the games if the Suns simply sold more memberships. You can prevent away fans from theoretically gaining access to the games that way as you have greater ticketing control over your home stadium.

The AFL doesn't let the smaller Melbourne teams achieve that. The Dogs have no right to prevent people who access a GA ticket through simply purchasing a ticket, away membership or AFL membership, to have equal rights to a Dogs GA membership, even though the Dogs fan has done the right thing to buy a ticket through the Dogs' website and membership mechanisms.

 

[GC2015]

Sure, but there's nothing preventing fewer Pies and Richmond fans attending the games if the Suns simply sold more memberships. You can prevent away fans from theoretically gaining access to the games that way as you have greater ticketing control over your home stadium.

The AFL doesn't let the smaller Melbourne teams achieve that. The Dogs have no right to prevent people who access a GA ticket through simply purchasing a ticket, away membership or AFL membership, to have equal rights to a Dogs GA membership, even though the Dogs fan has done the right thing to buy a ticket through the Dogs' website and membership mechanisms.

The Suns don't guarantee a GA member a ticket to a home game either. The club will email its GA members when they know there is high demand (like the Collingwood game) and tell them to upgrade their seats for that particular game or risk being turned away at the turnstiles. This is why the GA sections are often filled with Collingwood supporters whenever we play the Pies.

So what you're really suggesting is, if both our clubs grow their membership base and convince members to buy higher levels of memberships that include assigned seating, then it will address the outnumbering issue. Geez, if I knew it was that easy then I would have told the club a long time ago. You better pass the message on to your club as well so no one misses out.

Trying to convince 30k Suns members and/or 50k Bulldogs members to buy assigned seating memberships is not an easy task and would probably take close to a decade of solid success to achieve.

 

[briztoon]

I’m from Sydney initially, grew up with rugby and watch heaps of basketball.

Acting like a 2hr flight once a week is some insurmountable disadvantage is a laugh. Your not flying to NZ, or South Africa or a soccer player flying 20+ hours across time zones for a game only to fly 20 hours back.

It takes as long to get to Noosa from Brisbane by car as it does to get from Brisbane to Melbourne via plane and you’d call that a relaxing weekend day trip. Brisbane to Sydney via plane is the same as Brisbane to GC via bus.

No it doesn’t.

I’ve just got to pack and jump in my car to drive to Noosa.

To fly to Melbourne, I’ve got to pack, take a 20 minute Uber ride to the airport, wait an hour+ for the flight, sit on the tarmac in queue for another 20 minutes, fly to Melbourne, sit on the tarmac for another 20 minutes before embarking, wait for my luggage and get an Uber and drive for 40 minutes to my accommodation.

Every club is having a bit of a sook about this travel stuff trying to whinge to get an advantage.

Every Melbourne club will 100% choose shared tenancy over their “home” ground, rather than travel as much as the non Victorian teams.

We’ve already seen Richmond complain about the travel involved when playing at Marvel, and Carlton complain about not wanting to play anymore interstate games because of the travel.

You’re acting like it’s nothing. But your clubs whinge a different story.

You’re full of b.s. and everyone knows it, including the administration and coaches running the Vic clubs.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

To fly to Melbourne, I’ve got to pack, take a 20 minute Uber ride to the airport, wait an hour+ for the flight, sit on the tarmac in queue for another 20 minutes, fly to Melbourne, sit on the tarmac for another 20 minutes before embarking, wait for my luggage and get an Uber and drive for 40 minutes to my accommodation.

But none of this has performance-altering effects. Highly tuned athletes don't get fatigued stretching their legs walking around an airport terminal. They maybe do having to be contained to an airline seat or having to sit in pressurised cabins or time zone or different temperature effects, which is why West Coast complain. The act of waiting an hour in an airport doesn't impact your physical conditioning, really! The act of packing doesn't make your muscles fatigued or impact your recovery!

We’ve already seen Richmond complain about the travel involved when playing at Marvel,

Prove it. Provide a link. State where they specifically state that the distance (ie travel) to the other side of the CBD has been stated by Richmond.

 

[briztoon]

Well yeah, because research consistently shows that home fans doing home fans things is the main reason that home ground advantages exist

And yes, GWS and GC having low crowds impacts their home ground advantage. But at least we can say that's due to being a small club. It's not due to the AFL determining that if you buy an Western Bulldogs membership with General Admission access, and a Essendon membership with away game general admission access, and an AFL membership with General Admission access, you have equal priority to scan your barcode into a Western Bulldogs home game, despite the fact that common sense or fairness in terms of home ground advantage would dictate that the Western Bulldogs members should be given the opportunity to claim a ticket before the Essendon members do.

Your players get to sleep in their own beds.

Drive to the mcg at their leisure.

Get the full recovery protocols post game. And don’t have to sit in restricted spaces for a couple of hours post game, when sore and tired.

Every single Vic player and coach who has moved interstate has acknowledged the toll such travel takes on the players.


It’s on your fans to turn up and outnumber the opposition, if you’re own fans don’t show up, or you don’t have enough fans, that’s on your club, not on the fixture.

 

[danster168]

The way I look at it is, clearly the comp isn't even so whilst fans of Brisbane can be chummy, it minimised their future success un the eyes of many. As it did with Collingwood and as it does with the bulldogs. Sure, the average footy fan who doesn't follow things closely will have no idea but footy tragic like me, don't really respect the success that these clubs have had or in brisbanes' case will continue to have.

If Melbourne had Daicos x 2, Darcy Moore and Quaynor we win the last 2 flags.
If Melbourne had Sam Darcy, Ugle-Hagan we win the last 2 flags.
If Melbourne have Ashcroft x 2 and Fletcher, we're premiership favourites the next 3 years.

So ultimately, teams are only as good as their gifts. A team like Hawthorn have rebuilt through the draft so I respect how they've done it. Calsher Dear was a F/S but was taken late in the draft.

briztoon I'm not sure if this has been addressed yet but the main issue with Brisbane/other interstate teams is that you get the noise of affirmation with the umpires every 2nd week. So every 2nd week, every time Ashcroft flops and ducks his head to draw high free kicks because he can't extract it any other way due to being slow, the umpires fall for it and blow their whistle. every 2nd week your team gets a huge leg up from the umps. Victorian teams get it once every 6 weeks or so. That's the main issue, the umpires. The standard is still horrific and they get sucked in by external noise every time.

 

[briztoon]

But none of this has performance-altering effects.

100% it does.

Fagan wrote a multi page reply to the AFL competition committee about it.

Dimma has spoken about it.

The WA clubs, the actual coaches, players and administrators have spoken about it for years.

Every single non Victorian club has spoken about the impact it has on player recovery and performance.

If you’re deaf to this, pull your head out of the sand, or wherever else you’re sticking it.

Highly tuned athletes don't get fatigued stretching their legs walking around an airport terminal.

lol of course it does. There’s been multiple studies across a range of sports about the impact of travel.

Go and google. There are pages and pages of studies.

And they don’t all apply to long haul travel either.

They maybe do having to be contained to an airline seat or having to sit in pressurised cabins or time zone or different temperature effects, which is why West Coast complain. The act of waiting an hour in an airport doesn't impact your physical conditioning, really! The act of packing doesn't make your muscles fatigued or impact your recovery!

It’s not the packing stoopid.

It’s the missing out on the proper recovery protocols.

The ice baths, massages. Lack of sleep, etc.

The impact such travel has on fatigued muscle, etc.

I swear you’re just being obtuse now.

Prove it. Provide a link. State where they specifically state that the distance (ie travel) to the other side of the CBD has been stated by Richmond.

Dimma said it in a press conference when he was still at Richmond.

He said they hate playing at Marvel due to the travel.

 

[briztoon]

Prove it. Provide a link. State where they specifically state that the distance (ie travel) to the other side of the CBD has been stated by Richmond.

 

[briztoon]

The way I look at it is, clearly the comp isn't even so whilst fans of Brisbane can be chummy, it minimised their future success un the eyes of many. As it did with Collingwood and as it does with the bulldogs. Sure, the average footy fan who doesn't follow things closely will have no idea but footy tragic like me, don't really respect the success that these clubs have had or in brisbanes' case will continue to have.

If Melbourne had Daicos x 2, Darcy Moore and Quaynor we win the last 2 flags.
If Melbourne had Sam Darcy, Ugle-Hagan we win the last 2 flags.
If Melbourne have Ashcroft x 2 and Fletcher, we're premiership favourites the next 3 years.

So ultimately, teams are only as good as their gifts. A team like Hawthorn have rebuilt through the draft so I respect how they've done it. Calsher Dear was a F/S but was taken late in the draft.

briztoon I'm not sure if this has been addressed yet but the main issue with Brisbane/other interstate teams is that you get the noise of affirmation with the umpires every 2nd week. So every 2nd week, every time Ashcroft flops and ducks his head to draw high free kicks because he can't extract it any other way due to being slow, the umpires fall for it and blow their whistle. every 2nd week your team gets a huge leg up from the umps. Victorian teams get it once every 6 weeks or so. That's the main issue, the umpires. The standard is still horrific and they get sucked in by external noise every time.

Man you should sit in the Gabba stands with me and blow up at the non calls our players don’t get.

The AFL must deliberately assign the Brisbane hating umps to us regularly, because when we see 15 & 25 umpiring our games, we’re in for a rogering.

If we’re winning, cruising through a game, the Gabba is almost as silent as a morgue. There’s not much in the way of noise of affirmation up here.

The loudest noises are usually reserved for the booing of the umps. Or the occasional win, where we’ve felt the umps were dudding us.

You must be confusing the Gabba with Geelong.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

You do realise that home teams cannot prevent away fans from accessing the game if their opposition is also in Melbourne? For every away game that they don't travel there's a home game that there's no home ground advantage.

Dogs played two home games this year where there were more opposition fans in the stands than their own fans. That is untrue for any of the 11 home games played by any of the 9 non-Melbourne teams.

I'm sure your club can take those games to Alice Springs or somewhere like that if they really want a home ground advantage.

MCG is only a home ground advantage against interstate sides, it’s as neutral as it gets outside of that scenario.

Interstate sides can whinge all they want about travel, the facts are they have a bonafide legitimate home ground advantage for at least games a year which is not something Melbourne based clubs have

Perhaps Melbourne clubs should all return to their suburban stadiums then, and pay for the maintenance and renovations themselves.

 

[sr36]

Your players get to sleep in their own beds.

Drive to the mcg at their leisure.

Get the full recovery protocols post game. And don’t have to sit in restricted spaces for a couple of hours post game, when sore and tired.

Every single Vic player and coach who has moved interstate has acknowledged the toll such travel takes on the players.


It’s on your fans to turn up and outnumber the opposition, if you’re own fans don’t show up, or you don’t have enough fans, that’s on your club, not on the fixture.

Here's the number of interstate travels per club next year:

Adelaide 10​

Brisbane 11​

Carlton 6​

Collingwood 6​

Essendon 6​

Fremantle 10​

Geelong 6​

Gold Coast 13​

GWS 14​

Hawthorn10​

Melbourne 7​

North Melbourne 10​

Port Adelaide 10​

Richmond 6​

St Kilda 7​

Sydney 11​

West Coast 10​

So if we ignore the selling of home games to interstate venues, the standard travel difference between Vic and Non-Vic is 5 games to the Northern states and 4 games to the Western states.

Bare in mind that it's a 25 week home and away season, so all the travel carry on comes down to an extra return flight every 5 or 6 weeks.

You really think that has a massive big impact?

 

[sydney_gws]

Here's the number of interstate travels per club next year:

Adelaide 10​

Brisbane 11​

Carlton 6​

Collingwood 6​

Essendon 6​

Fremantle 10​

Geelong 6​

Gold Coast 13​

GWS 14​

Hawthorn10​

Melbourne 7​

North Melbourne 10​

Port Adelaide 10​

Richmond 6​

St Kilda 7​

Sydney 11​

West Coast 10​

So if we ignore the selling of home games to interstate venues, the standard travel difference between Vic and Non-Vic is 5 games to the Northern states and 4 games to the Western states.

Bare in mind that it's a 25 week home and away season, so all the travel carry on comes down to an extra return flight every 5 or 6 weeks.

You really think that has a massive big impact?

Probably depends if you like flying or not.
It is a disadvantage, but that's bad luck.
The Adelaide, Perth clubs don't want another team in their city which helps cut down flying times.

 

[danster168]

Man you should sit in the Gabba stands with me and blow up at the non calls our players don’t get.

The AFL must deliberately assign the Brisbane hating umps to us regularly, because when we see 15 & 25 umpiring our games, we’re in for a rogering.

If we’re winning, cruising through a game, the Gabba is almost as silent as a morgue. There’s not much in the way of noise of affirmation up here.

The loudest noises are usually reserved for the booing of the umps. Or the occasional win, where we’ve felt the umps were dudding us.

You must be confusing the Gabba with Geelong.

But to be fair, most likely 15 and 25 are the neutral umpires and every other ump is influenced by the noises. I'm not picking on Brisbane, it's every interstate team when playing at their home ground. it's a 4-6 goal advantage. So of the 12 games at the Gabba, you lost it 3 times. So the stats don't support what you're saying. You can make stuff up like 'we attack the ball harder' to make you feel better but the reality is it's a massive leg up on the competition.

Stkilda L
Collingwood L
Carlton L
---------------------
Geelong WON
Gold Coast WON
Rich WON
Melb WON
Adelaide WON
Sydney WON
GWS DREW
Ess WON
Carlton WON

 

[sr36]

Probably depends if you like flying or not.
It is a disadvantage, but that's bad luck.
The Adelaide, Perth clubs don't want another team in their city which helps cut down flying times.

Adelaide can't really justify one by population, but the comp would be better balanced if there were 3 teams in WA. But yeah, like the teams who sell games to other venues, they consider the extra money more of a benefit than the extra flight is a disadvantage.

 

[briztoon]

Here's the number of interstate travels per club next year:

Adelaide 10​

Brisbane 11​

Carlton 6​

Collingwood 6​

Essendon 6​

Fremantle 10​

Geelong 6​

Gold Coast 13​

GWS 14​

Hawthorn10​

Melbourne 7​

North Melbourne 10​

Port Adelaide 10​

Richmond 6​

St Kilda 7​

Sydney 11​

West Coast 10​

So if we ignore the selling of home games to interstate venues, the standard travel difference between Vic and Non-Vic is 5 games to the Northern states and 4 games to the Western states.

Bare in mind that it's a 25 week home and away season, so all the travel carry on comes down to an extra return flight every 5 or 6 weeks.

You really think that has a massive big impact?

Yes, because it’s not just an extra flight every 5 weeks, as we were already flying 2 of those other weeks.

It’s the very reason why the Carlton coach had a whinge about potentially flying one extra week at the beginning of the season and didn’t want to play Opening Round.

 

[briztoon]

But to be fair, most likely 15 and 25 are the neutral umpires and every other ump is influenced by the noises. I'm not picking on Brisbane, it's every interstate team when playing at their home ground. it's a 4-6 goal advantage. So of the 12 games at the Gabba, you lost it 3 times. So the stats don't support what you're saying. You can make stuff up like 'we attack the ball harder' to make you feel better but the reality is it's a massive leg up on the competition.

Stkilda L
Collingwood L
Carlton L
---------------------
Geelong WON
Gold Coast WON
Rich WON
Melb WON
Adelaide WON
Sydney WON
GWS DREW
Ess WON
Carlton WON

We are currently a good team. We win more games than we loose.

Why don’t you go and look up the win loss ratio from 2010 to 2017.

 

[sr36]

Yes, because it’s not just an extra flight every 5 weeks, as we were already flying 2 of those other weeks.

It’s the very reason why the Carlton coach had a whinge about potentially flying one extra week at the beginning of the season and didn’t want to play Opening Round.

Would Northern teams give up the academy advantages to have Vic teams fly 5 more times a year? I think you'd be insane to.