Opinion "Far-West Footy" - GremioPower's blog

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BONUS POINTS

With 4 points per win, the AFL tournament is ripe for some kind of Bonus Point. This is my suggestion:


I'm not into any bonus point system GP, as I believe it could be exploited, particularly when a team has nothing to play for late in the season, their oppo could run amok and rack up bonus points at will.

Different game and different rules of course but the cricket authorities here virtually stuffed the Sheffield Shield (state cricket comp) which had been going for well over 100 years before they began to change it with various bonus point systems, eg one of the first changes was an extra bonus point for bowling a team out (ie 10 wickets) in the first innings, so the batting captains stymied that virtually from day one by declaring at 9 down, regardless of the score.

There were batting bonus points as well, so once the batting team was looking like scoring extra bonus points the bowling captain would set extremely negative fields and instruct their bowlers to bowl wide of the stumps with multiple fieldsmen on the boundary on both sides of the wicket which didn't exactly result in an entertaining game.

I don't know a lot about the current bonus point system except to say there are now too many contrived results, I have seen scores in recent seasons where a team can dominate 3 of the 4 days of a Shield match and finish up with just above 3 points in total for the game, and the oppo (as long as they can hang on for a draw) can get close to 2.

Under the old system even if the end result was a draw the team which dominated the match would have got a minimum of 4 points, and the oppo zero.

They used to get good crowds at Shield games for decades as well, but now many of them appear to be played in front of no more than friends and family.
 
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I'm not into any bonus point system GP, as I believe it could be exploited, particularly when a team has nothing to play for late in the season, their oppo could run amok and rack up bonus points at will.

Different game and different rules of course but the cricket authorities here virtually stuffed the Sheffield Shield (state cricket comp) which had been going for well over 100 years before they began to change it with various bonus point systems, eg one of the first changes was an extra bonus point for bowling a team out (ie 10 wickets) in the first innings, so the batting captains stymied that virtually from day one by declaring at 9 down, regardless of the score.

There were batting bonus points as well, so once the batting team was looking like scoring extra bonus points the bowling captain would set extremely negative fields and instruct their bowlers to bowl wide of the stumps with multiple fieldsmen on the boundary on both sides of the wicket which didn't exactly result in an entertaining game.

I don't know a lot about the current bonus point system except to say there are now too many contrived results, I have seen scores in recent seasons where a team can dominate 3 of the 4 days of a Shield match and finish up with just above 3 points in total for the game, and the oppo (as long as they can hang on for a draw) can get close to 2.

Under the old system even if the end result was a draw the team which dominated the match would have got a minimum of 4 points, and the oppo zero.

They used to get good crowds at Shield games for decades as well, but now many of them appear to be played in front of no more than friends and family.

They are used well in union, but I couldn’t see how they could be applied in football.

The only one that I thought possible was precisely quarter wins. It’s different than the ones you’ve mentioned.
 

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RussellEbertHandball

Just adding to the tweet above, my point is that 2 games replacing the bye is more footy without essentially changing anything.

With the Top-4 having double-chance, you could even put all 18 teams in. A mini tournament for the last 2 spots in SF would be similar.

But it’s not that. It’s actually reasonable.
 
The Elimination Final is still a final, it is simply a knockout final. In theory a team can finish eight and still go top. I am not sure why we are having this discussion about Finals all of a sudden. The current system works OK and the AFL seems to be hell bent on introducing additional finals to eliminate the bye in the week before the Elimination Final.

If they are unhappy with the bye don't have a bye. The pre finals bye was introduced because the likes of Ross Lyon played silly buggers and rested half the Dockers team in the week before the Finals. The AFL theory is that Coaches will be reluctant to rest players for two weeks prior to the finals so they have a bye. A way around this tanking is to play right up to the finals and penalise Coaches who dilute the voracity of the comp by resting players.

I suspect that the AFL attempt to complicate the finals is a money grab rather than an attempt to get a fairer competition.
 
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2023.08.17 (Expectations)
AFL being AFL (2024.02.22)
ON TARRYN THOMAS

 
I do not think Thomas has been victimised though. When you look at what he has done and some of his comments he is someone the game is better off without. Given it's zero tolerance policy on domestic violence the AFL had to act and North Melbourne had to follow suit. This is not a one off incident as it extends back over several years and Thomas' behaviour included threatening text messages while he was under going a relationship education programme. How do you help someone who exhibits that sort of behaviour?

The AFL and North Melbourne have tried to help this guy but thus far he has not responded.
 
I do not think Thomas has been victimised though. When you look at what he has done and some of his comments he is someone the game is better off without. Given it's zero tolerance policy on domestic violence the AFL had to act and North Melbourne had to follow suit. This is not a one off incident as it extends back over several years and Thomas' behaviour included threatening text messages while he was under going a relationship education programme. How do you help someone who exhibits that sort of behaviour?

The AFL and North Melbourne have tried to help this guy but thus far he has not responded.

In isolation, the decision is fine. The problem is that it is not isolated. I’m criticizing the others.
 
2024.03.25 (Dekochication)
BOAK, HINKLEY, KOCH, & PORT

This has its own thread here, but I thought it would be good posting it here as well:

 

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Opinion "Far-West Footy" - GremioPower's blog

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