Has Competitive Equalisation created a need for wild-card finals?

[jabba5114]

If we go to 10. I'd want whoever finishes 1 and 2 get first week off.

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[trossa]

No, I don't think over half the teams in the competition should play finals. Limits the prestige of it.

 

[WillHayward]

No..9th are usually pretty shit.

 

[Chiz]

When we go to 19 teams, a final 10 makes sense - you want to aim for around half the teams in the finals. However, I'd have the top 6 with a bye (instead of the pre-finals bye), 7v10, 8v9 wildcard games, then into a knockout final 8 - it's a much better system than the current one.

 

[peetoo]

When they finally have the wildcard round, it will be underwhelming footy

 

[Blue1980]

It’s not really wildcard, it’s just a final 10.

A real wildcard round would be random sides out of finals making it based on some weird arbitrary criteria. Maybe drawn out of a hat, or decided by the AFL like wildcards are decided for tennis grand slams.

 

[FreoGirl]

it will be looked at during the final weeks of the season and suddenly changed if Freo gets a sniff, just like the sudden semi final in Geelong in 2013...

 

[Eshay187]

At the very least, GF should be best of 3. We don’t want GFs decided on an umpiring decision, and we want to nudge things towards the best team winning. 3 removes randomness, big TV ratings etc.

20 teams, 19 rounds, best of 3 GF, you end up with a similar number of games to a 22 round current season.

Genius, we’ve solved it

 

[Breretonisahood]

I’d prefer a wild card round where 7th and 8th play the best performed teams outside the 8 in terms of best win/loss ratio against the top 8 teams. That way you’d be selecting teams that might have a chance of actually winning a final.

 

[SC_Power]

Or, we could get rid of stand, 6/6/6 and ruck nominations and leave the finals system as it is currently. Just saying.

I don’t like 6/6/6.
I like 3-3/3-3/3-3, so there’s equal players on both sides of the ground.
Umpired by wearing bibs with letter like “FF”, “HBF”, “CHB”, “FB”.
Solves the problem of interchanges because you have to give your bib to the player coming on.

Oh, and as for the OP, I think instead of wildcards, there should be a secondary finals series to determine % chance of getting higher draft picks, rather than just a draft order.

 

[SC_Power]

I’d prefer a wild card round where 7th and 8th play the best performed teams outside the 8 in terms of best win/loss ratio against the top 8 teams. That way you’d be selecting teams that might have a chance of actually winning a final.

Can see a situation where in Rd 22, a bottom 10 team deliberately loses to a rival team that they already beat earlier in the year, to help them make the 8 over a team that they lost to earlier in the year, so their win counts and it helps them make the wildcard round.

 

[Underarm]

It’s not really wildcard, it’s just a final 10.

A real wildcard round would be random sides out of finals making it based on some weird arbitrary criteria. Maybe drawn out of a hat, or decided by the AFL like wildcards are decided for tennis grand slams.

Wild cards in AFL would be about guaranteeing spots for each state or an even amount of Vic vs Non Vic teams.

 

[Billy ray]

Top 8 plus next two teams with best percentage. Only true wildcard.
Reward teams who didnt get belted.
Would also prevent blowouts.

 

[captain blood 17]

I don’t like 6/6/6.
I like 3-3/3-3/3-3, so there’s equal players on both sides of the ground.
Umpired by wearing bibs with letter like “FF”, “HBF”, “CHB”, “FB”.
Solves the problem of interchanges because you have to give your bib to the player coming on.

Oh, and as for the OP, I think instead of wildcards, there should be a secondary finals series to determine % chance of getting higher draft picks, rather than just a draft order.

The funny thing is, even as late as last night the pies surged and a commentator goes “oooh, and now it’s 6/6/6….”
Guess what, we have automatically clogged a 50m space with 12 blokes. It hasn’t fixed congestion at all. And scoring has decreased with these rules no one asked for. It’s nuts.

 

[legend166]

The whole point of a wildcard round is to recognise that sometimes you get stronger conferences/divisions than others so you keep a couple of spots open for teams who have a good record but didn't win their conference/division.

The AFL doesn't have conferences or divisions so it's just a final 10 which is dumb. For the sake of one extra finals game you're watering down the whole season.

 

[SC_Power]

The whole point of a wildcard round is to recognise that sometimes you get stronger conferences/divisions than others so you keep a couple of spots open for teams who have a good record but didn't win their conference/division.

The AFL doesn't have conferences or divisions so it's just a final 10 which is dumb. For the sake of one extra finals game you're watering down the whole season.

Shhh… wildcards for AFL is all about money.

 

[Blue1980]

Wild cards in AFL would be about guaranteeing spots for each state or an even amount of Vic vs Non Vic teams.

If you do that you may as well have conferences

 

[Underarm]

If you do that you may as well have conferences

I don't think its a good idea, nor do I think Conferences are needed, but Aussies sports fans have an irrational hatred of confrences.

 

[Lavender Bushranger]

Over the last decade we have seen effects of the AFL's Competitive Equalisation efforts tighten the ladder and make for a much more even competition. The Bulldogs famously won their 2016 flag from 7th position in 2016, a year in which only two wins separated 1st from 7th on the ladder. The Giants made a run to the Grand Final after also finishing 7th three years later in 2019. More and more the gulf is shrinking between the good enough and the not quite there yet, with factors like fixturing, double-ups and tough starts having a massive effect on final ladder positions.

With the addition of Tasmania and a probable 20th team in the next ~10 years, we will see 12 teams miss finals every year. Many of them will hold a positive win/loss record, even now 12 wins and 10 losses is not enough to secure a spot in the finals. In 2018 four seperate clubs missed finals with a 12/10 win loss record.

2024 is shaping up to be another tight year on the ladder, possibly more so than ever before. Right now nearing the pointy end of the season we have only 6 points, or a game and a half, separating 3rd and 13th spots on the ladder. Hawthorn and the Bulldogs, two of the form teams of the competition sit in 13th and 9th spot respectively, both with a positive win/loss record.

We are going to see some good teams miss out on finals. Teams that could at the very least challenge those above them. With the pre-finals bye resulting in top 4 teams being twice as likely to drop out in straight sets, and the increased probability of lower finishing teams making preliminary finals and the Grand Final, it is no longer a case in which the lower half of the 8 is simply making up the numbers.

Is it time for the AFL to implement a Wild Card finals round to take place in what is now the pre-finals bye week, with matches between 7th vs 10th and 8th vs 9th to decide who faces 5th and 6th in the Elimination Finals?

Not sure.

But I am sure that people that express opinions and frame them as questions are flogs.

 

[ioppolo]

Imagine if the star player of the 10th placed side does a 12 month injury in the 7v10 playoff.

 

[Teen Wolf]

Instead of expanding to 24 H&A games per team when the 19th club joins, an alternative consideration will be to cut back to 22 and then have a 3-week 12-team round-robin "Super Series" before knockout semis and prelims.

Super Series
Pool A (teams play each other once): 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th
Pool B (teams play each other once): 5th, 8th, 9th, 12th
Pool C (teams play each other once): 6th, 7th, 10th, 11th
-Home ground advantage goes to higher-ranked team except when it's a Vic vs non-Vic matchup, in which case the non-Vic team gets it.
-Once concluded, rankings within each pool are reassigned based solely on results across the previous 3 weeks.

Finals week 1
SF1: 3rd Pool A vs 1st Pool C
SF2: 4th Pool A vs 1st Pool B
-Home ground advantage goes to higher-ranked team.
-Week off: 1st Pool A & 2nd Pool A

Finals week 2
PF1: 1st Pool A vs Winner SF2
PF2: 2nd Pool A vs Winner SF1
-Home ground advantage goes to higher-ranked team.

Finals week 3
GF: Winner PF1 vs Winner PF2

I'm told league officials are wary of the H&A season dragging on too long for the bottom 6 or so teams, and they wouldn't mind cutting out two rounds of thrashings which are obviously bad for crowds and ratings. There's no chance of decreasing the total number of games, so this would be the solution.

The next question is what would become of Gather Round, and the answer is the AFL would instead sell the 3rd week of the "Super Series" to the highest-bidding state. Therefore, it would likely need to coincide with school holidays, probably meaning the GF is pushed back 1 or 2 weeks.

However, H&A games would still start on the weekend of Vic/Tas Labour Day, and they'd probably get rid of the pre-finals August bye too, which opens up 1 or 2 free weeks mid-season to try out a number of different concepts (rep games, etc.).

 

[catters_28]

it will be looked at during the final weeks of the season and suddenly changed if Freo gets a sniff, just like the sudden semi final in Geelong in 2013...

If you're going to whinge at least get your facts right. It was a qualifying final. And you won. Perhaps they should've moved the grand final to Kardinia Park as well and Fyfe might've actually kicked straight

 

[Dan26]

Yes, there should be a final-10, and there are many good reasons why a final-10 is superior to a final-8 in an 18-team league, but the most logical reason is as follows:

Most would agree that in the 16-team league, 8 teams making the finals (50%) was perfect, right?

So, in an 18-team league, theoretically 9 would be perfect because that is 50%, right? I'm not saying we go to 9, because logistically a final-9 is difficult, but in a pure mathematical sense, 9 out of 18 (50%) is ideal, right?

So, if 9 out of 18 is mathematically perfect (but logistically impossible) that means we do either 8 or 10.

8 is one removed from the ideal number number of 9.
10 is also one removed from the ideal number of 9.

Both are "wrong" by 1, if you look at it that way. Neither is more incorrect than the other. So if 8 is one less than the ideal, and 10 is one more than the ideal, why wouldn't you go to 10??

For starters, weren't you always taught at school to round UP to the nearest whole number not round down?

And secondly the AFL isn't just in the sporting business - they are in the entertainment business, and a final-10 would reduce the amount of dead rubbers which is important in the entertainment industry. This is really the key point. If both 8 and 10 are "wrong" by 1, and neither is better or worse than the other, why wouldn't you err on the side of rounding UP given the entertainment product is just as important as the sporting product? There is no logic in rounding down. None.

 

[FreoGirl]

If you're going to whinge at least get your facts right. It was a qualifying final. And you won. Perhaps they should've moved the grand final to Kardinia Park as well and Fyfe might've actually kicked straight

regardless, it was still intended to disadvantage Fremantle

I actually flew over with the team - awesome memories

 

[peetoo]

Yes, there should be a final-10, and there are many good reasons why a final-10 is superior to a final-8 in an 18-team league, but the most logical reason is as follows:

Most would agree that in the 16-team league, 8 teams making the finals (50%) was perfect, right?

So, in an 18-team league, theoretically 9 would be perfect because that is 50%, right? I'm not saying we go to 9, because logistically a final-9 is difficult, but in a pure mathematical sense, 9 out of 18 (50%) is ideal, right?

So, if 9 out of 18 is mathematically perfect (but logistically impossible) that means we do either 8 or 10.

8 is one removed from the ideal number number of 9.
10 is also one removed from the ideal number of 9.

Both are "wrong" by 1, if you look at it that way. Neither is more incorrect than the other. So if 8 is one less than the ideal, and 10 is one more than the ideal, why wouldn't you go to 10??

For starters, weren't you always taught at school to round UP to the nearest whole number not round down?

And secondly the AFL isn't just in the sporting business - they are in the entertainment business, and a final-10 would reduce the amount of dead rubbers which is important in the entertainment industry. This is really the key point. If both 8 and 10 are "wrong" by 1, and neither is better or worse than the other, why wouldn't you err on the side of rounding UP given the entertainment product is just as important as the sporting product? There is no logic in rounding down. None.

And when the wild card games turn out to be poor spectacles?