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

[SBD Gonzalez]

I think this season is fine in terms of quality teams & there is potential for some excellent finals

where this season has a real funk is the idiotic distribution of byes, fixturing & round zero + a new bar being set for sh!t umpiring

Yep. I’ve effin’ hated this mid-season period where you never really known where anyone sits on the ladder.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

If Trump were a Richmond fan he'd tweet like this.

LOL exactly what I was thinking!

 

[smasha]

If Trump were a Richmond fan he'd tweet like this.

Trump is a goose.
The way the presidential candidates are chosen is similar to the way the AFL is run.

 

[Fadge]

Interesting thread.

I regularly wonder how much interest I'd have in the AFL if my team spent multiple decades at a time out of premiership contention, in the way Richmond and Carlton do.

Lucky I support Collingwood, where that's never a problem.

 

[Red Black and Blue]

Is it? The current standard and skills of our footballers is the highest it’s ever been and continuously improving

Disagree. We have a bunch of outside players dictating the game these days. The level of physicality of 15 years ago would relegate half the midfielders of todays game to the half back flank or forward pocket. The mids can kick the ball so well because they aren't experiencing the fatigue of battering in, yet still we don't see better ratios of kicking at goal than we did in the 90's when the game was combative.

 

[BF Tiger]

Injuries
New coach
Aging players
New players
Injuries

that is Richmond's year.

C7 idjots are a fact of life- mute button ON.
AFL MRO and Tribunal - much like 'fixturing' of games - a load of rubbish all about maximising clickbait and money

Richmond have had a MORE than great run - 3 flags in 4 years mate- legendary stuff.

Absolutely, and those three flags will sustain me for some time. If we’d missed our window I’m not sure I could stomach the game at the moment and be looking at five decades in the wilderness.

 

[JustaBattler]

Absolutely, and those three flags will sustain me for some time. If we’d missed our window I’m not sure I could stomach the game at the moment and be looking at five decades in the wilderness.

3 in 4 years - and Richmond were not part of the lucky and set brigade Geelong/Hawthorn/Collingwood/West Coast/Sydney - when the AFL decided to introduce GWS and Sns and take ALL the best players out of the draft for 4 years and hand them over to the startups....

Genuine 3 flags kudos to the Club.

 

[Dangerousfield]

It's been an average year with average teams . Please tell me otherwise if you have evidence.

Oh for the great seasons when Richmond were up and about!

This is a great season, never been so even, plenty of upsets which is what we want.

Great that Richmond have gone back to the bottom with little hope of climbing for a decade.

This IS a great season!

 

[north_lad]

Starting to think that maybe the league are Richmond's grand final

 

[benji2]

It’s not quite the foregone conclusion 2000 was (ironically Carlton was the main challenger that year) but it’s not very gripping admittedly, Sydney are way out in front atm. Only thing stopping them is peaking too early.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[BF Tiger]

Interesting thread.

I regularly wonder how much interest I'd have in the AFL if my team spent multiple decades at a time out of premiership contention, in the way Richmond and Carlton do.

Lucky I support Collingwood, where that's never a problem.

Winning > contending

 

[Do the Dew]

Is this the worst main board thread in many a long while?

Nah, Daicos goat one is worse.

 

[CaptchaProofBot]

There have only been three enjoyable seasons in the last 40 years: 2017, 2019 and 2020

can't believe you left out 2018, Coxy.

 

[InternetToughGuy]

This is probably the weakest era of football since 2002-2007.

There's not really many stars of the game running around at the moment.
Bontempelli, Curnow, Daicos, Neale, Cripps, Merrett... hardly generational or inspiring (perhaps with the exceptions of Bont and potentially Daicos if he continues on his current trajectory).

We're 14 rounds in and Essendon have only lost 4 games with their average list. Outside of Sydney, Hawthorn are arguably the form team of the comp and their list is full of literal who's. North, WCE, and Richmond are historically bad, Adelaide have a poor list, St Kilda are unwatchable (and you can throw Freo in with them). Gold Coast can't win away from home, and Melbourne, Port and Geelong are all cooked. Carlton look okay but they have about 10 blokes running around each week who would look out of place with a premiership medallion hanging around their necks. All the drafts are compromised and most teams are perennially doomed without due access to talent.

If Gold Coast and GWS folded and the 20 or so B graders on their lists were interspersed amongst the remaining 16 clubs then the game may be prettier.

And don't get me started on the telecasts. Often my deciding factor on going to a game or not is who's calling it. If I have to listen to Dwayne Russell jacked up on 2000mg caffeine and yelling at me for 2.5 hours while he's pretending to be at the game despite being sat in Fox Footy's Southbank studio then my mind is easily made up.

The hip-hopification of the game and the media surrounding it is in full-swing as well which is cringey for someone who isn't a zoomer.

 

[Pistol Night]

can't believe you left out 2018, Coxy.

Was great apart from the last 2 minutes. Ive had relationships go the same way

 

[Aristotle Pickett]

Interesting thread.

I regularly wonder how much interest I'd have in the AFL if my team spent multiple decades at a time out of premiership contention, in the way Richmond and Carlton do.

Lucky I support Collingwood, where that's never a problem.

Collingwood didn't start favourites today and they lost.
That's the problem, there are no great teams this year.

 

[WalshistheGOAT]

Collingwood didn't start favourites today and they lost.
That's the problem, there are no great teams this year.

Every team has unexpected losses. The Swans have been outrageously good this season.

 

[Aristotle Pickett]

Every team has unexpected losses. The Swans have been outrageously good this season.

That's what I'm saying , it was an expected loss as Gold Coast were favourites. The comp is very mediocre and even.

 

[revo333]

Depends what you mean by worse.

Is having an open race for the flag better than the seasons where there are 2-3 very good teams and no one else has a chance?

It probably depends if you team is in the race or not.

 

[WalshistheGOAT]

That's what I'm saying , it was an expected loss as Gold Coast were favourites. The comp is very mediocre and even.

I think the comp is as stacked for talent as it has been the last few years, just think a few teams have been off the boil sporadically this year

 

[southern_crusher]

All seasons are shit when you follow Essendon. This one is no different

 

[Aristotle Pickett]

I think the comp is as stacked for talent as it has been the last few years, just think a few teams have been off the boil sporadically this year

There might be talent but there's not many Buddy Franklins or Dustin Martins running around.

 

[terrybull]

There might be talent but there's not many Buddy Franklins or Dustin Martins running around.

Has Dusty stopped running?

 

[Nicho50]

I’m not sure where people get the idea there’s 6-8 teams still competing for a flag. The flag will come from one of the top four and you can lock Sydney Carlton Essendon and probably Collingwood in to the top 4. Essendon are the weakest of the 4 but have a good fixture on the run home.

Freo, Geelong, GWS , Bulldogs and Gold Coast are absolutely making up the numbers.

It’s a great season for how close everything is from say 3-14 but I’m with the OP on it’s one of worst seasons of footy I’ve seen in a long time and I am probably more talking about everything in general the fixture has been a dogs breakfast, the byes, the injury toll across the league as sports science continually is making the game far worse spectacle. The umpiring has been atrocious, so bad that they had to make a change to how they call holding the ball mid way through only to make it even more of a cluster ****.

There has been some great games amongst the season but the fixture, byes and umpiring have overshadowed any real positive stuff.

 

[Cleansweep17]

Nah it’s just even.

Weakest period was late 2000s when Bombers made the 8 with a negative W/L record and teams were tanking for picks before GC/GWS came in. (Dees got fined for tanking)