Is this the worst season of AFL in many a long while?

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PerthBoy86 said:
Aren't acts of brilliance anymore? There are still amazing goals, marks, individual plays in general? I heartily disagree with that.

I do think it's true as the game becomes more professions, coaches, analysts, players etc will look at being more strategic, it'll be more studied etc, but end of the day footy is a simple game. It does keep evolving but it also stays the same, and overall I don't think I find it any less entertaining overall. I do share your gripes about the AFL in general though.
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The game is too crowded, not enough space for players to work in. There are still individual acts of brilliance but not to the extent of years past. If you look at season highlights packages now vs the 80s/90s/early 00s there's no comparison.
 
It may be a bit of a transition year, where new teams emerge as the best.

But to be this late in the year, and having no idea what the make up of the top 4 will be is great. Only Sydney are certain.

So many games carry weight, Freo in 3rd v Hawks in 13th this week and who knows who will win.

I remember during the peak Lyon years at Freo that sort of game was pretty much going to be a slam dunk 5-10 goal win, hardly worth watching even as a fan.

Personally I think it comes down to coaching being better across the league.

As for the umpiring - that’s a mix of recency bias and the absolute media saturation these days. The advent of score reviews alone means umpiring is better than ever before.

I think the finals series this year will be absolutely top notch.
 

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It will likely be the poorest quality top eight and thus premiership team in the AFL era. It is looking like basically a combination of the worst aspects of 2016 and 2000.

Sydney wins from here and they've probably beaten the worst competition since Essendon in 2000, while themselves being nowhere near that level of dominance or the standard of many other top teams.

Someone else wins and they have an equally bad record while beating worse overall competition than the Bulldogs did in 2016

Second this year already has five losses and will likely finish with a W/L and percentage similar to the Bulldogs in 2016, who came seventh.

The Bulldogs' 2016 seven loss record was also good enough to finish outright 3rd in 2000 for context of how sh*t that year was outside one dominant team.

Sydney's final record, on the other hand, is looking like it may not be good enough to even finish 3rd in say 2011.

All works out to a very poor quality top four and top 8.
 
Red Black and Blue said:
Unless someone seriously annouces themselves in the final third of the year, whoever wins it will be the worst premiership team of the afl era.
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Collingwood winning it last year and not getting close to backing it up in 2024 , has pretty much confirmed for me that they will go down as one of the worst in the current era
 
Worm4 said:
Collingwood winning it last year and not getting close to backing it up in 2024 , has pretty much confirmed for me that they will go down as one of the worst in the current era
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Collingwood at least had that aura of comebacks for 18 months that suggested greatest was inside them. That period will be remembered by footy fans for decades. Only a form slump when Daicos got injured late mid year stopped them from looking like an irresistible force.

Last truly seemed like their last window given the age of some of their stars and the hunger has abated a bit now they've got one.

Absolutely no one has any aura right now.
 
Skills, speed, stamina and game planning are so good now that any team can pull of an upset. Consistency becomes harder, margins of significant difference are smaller, small adjustments have big effects. In-game momentum swings are much more pronounced, it seems inevitable that a team jumping out by 5 will suffer a comeback. The game is in great shape, and there are star players reasonably well spread over the comp.

Footy games are more civilised, I haven't been pissed on or involved in an outer scuffle for many a decade. Players are professional and show high levels of sportsmanship. Footy culture is more amenable to more types of people.

Despite the footy being excellent, we are still left with bugbears.
-incestuous administration succession planning.
-expansion means teams are not dealt with the same.
-failing is rewarded.
-fixturing favours larger clubs.
-Melbourne centricity.
-The professionalism, performance and critique of footy media no where near matches that of clubs. It is terribly poor, and embarrassing.
 
2023-24 has had some of the best neutral footy value in a looong time. The game itself is pretty good right now, and the competitiveness and tight stakes just enhance that.

On the other hand, that lesser scale of achievement since the 2016 GF still lingers. The 2021 GF is the sole exception ever since when I felt we were getting a heavyweight decider, clearly the two best and scary sides at that, where the level required to take the flag was unimpeachable.
 
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Aristotle Pickett said:
If the best team loses by 100 points what does that say about this season?
There's not one team deserving of a premiership in my opinion.
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Nah, it's great.

'Big 4' look set to potentially miss finals altogether(Carlton will probably hold on), might be no Vic teams in the top 5 after today and it's anyone's flag to win.

Best. Season. Ever.
 

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Aristotle Pickett said:
It's been an average year with average teams . Please tell me otherwise if you have evidence.
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It’s been an extremely average year for your team, but never in the time I have been following VFL/AFL have I known a season to be so even and open. Even Swans who looked to be out on a limb on top are now looking shaky.
 
Sttew said:
It’s been an extremely average year for your team, but never in the time I have been following VFL/AFL have I known a season to be so even and open. Even Swans who looked to be out on a limb on top are now looking shaky.
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This is exactly why it's the worst season ever.

Every team being equally shit does not make it good.
 
What an awful season. We are going to end up with a boring Sydney-Geelong grand final at this stage nobody other than Swans or Cats fans would care about

The AFL will lose money and ratings with Geelong and Sydney ending in another grand final mauling. Will just watch 2023 and ignore the finals series
 
bzparkes said:
Define 'Equally shit'

Hint: They're not 'equally shit', simply because your club isn't making finals.
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Pretty easy to define, actually. Look how many losses/draws the teams in the top 4 have had and compare it to other years.

We've never had a top team at this stage of the season be this bad before. We've never had a top team 20 games into a season lose 5 out of its last 6 games - with the one win being over the bottom team - including getting smashed by 100 points. They would not still be on top in a normal year.

If you can't actually throw up a counter-argument for a worse year, then your opinion is less than worthless. If this isn't the worst year in the AFL era, what is?
 
Linda Lovelace said:
Pretty easy to define, actually. Look how many losses/draws the teams in the top 4 have had and compare it to other years.

We've never had a top team at this stage of the season be this bad before. We've never had a top team 20 games into a season lose 5 out of its last 6 games - with the one win being over the bottom team - including getting smashed by 100 points. They would not still be on top in a normal year.

If you can't actually throw up a counter-argument for a worse year, then your opinion is less than worthless. If this isn't the worst year in the AFL era, what is?
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It means it's an even season, not a bad one.

The fact that there's no dominant team makes it exciting.

Boring AF when it's the same 2-3 teams year in, year out at the top of the ladder.

No 'Big' Vic teams contending(especially MCG tenants) makes it one of the best years in recent memory.
 
THIS AGED WELL
 
BigVic said:
What an awful season. We are going to end up with a boring Sydney-Geelong grand final at this stage nobody other than Swans or Cats fans would care about

The AFL will lose money and ratings with Geelong and Sydney ending in another grand final mauling. Will just watch 2023 and ignore the finals series
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With respect, Collingwood 23 wasn't a dominant premier
Fell in all.3 finals
 
Nah, it's been a good season, been a lot of ebbs and flows and plenty of unpredictable results. Plus we have a lot of footy to be played. I just hope we get a good Grand Final matchup.

Only thing I really haven't enjoyed was the "opening round" concept which really messed up the flow of the season early on and took away a lot of the excitement of seeing all the teams play after the pre-season.

Also, 2020 was by far and away the worst season I've seen, completely lost all interest that year, it felt like a pre-season comp that just kept going. Obviously outside factors at play there but they honestly shouldn't have bothered.
 

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Is this the worst season of AFL in many a long while?

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