No Oppo Supporters Non Bulldog Footy Talk - Bulldogs only - Part 5

[Sentinel]

Don't let the propagandising of the WA teams get to you.

• It's fine that they travel that much because it's just the geographic realities of being in an isolated city that makes it appealing that can make their team stronger. Perth is further away but it's also the closest city to half our countries' natural resources, which makes Perth a bigger city, which makes them big enough to have a team in the first place. Can't separate one for another
• What evidence is there that the travel disadvantage is stronger than the net crowd-driven home ground advantages? West Coast certainly aren't as disadvantaged by playing at Docklands vs. us where they still have some fans in the crowd, fewer Dogs fans and somewhat of a familiarity with the ground, compared to when we travel there, hardly ever play at the ground, virtually nil fans in the stand and 50,000 rabid fans there.

There is a general refusal by fans of AFL clubs to acknowledge the advantages their own clubs hold whilst crying poor at everyone else's. The AFL is not a level playing field for many reasons, but WA fans whinging that Vic clubs rarely have to travel but refusing to listen to the idea that their teams get 10 true home games (soon to be 11) is disingenous - as for SA fans who can't acknowledge that Gather Round is a big leg up for them. The same goes on the flipside for Victorian clubs like ours, where we are lucky to have just 6 of 23 games outside of our home state (but far fewer non-neutral games).

I commented on the main board thread that the AFL should be actively doing what it can to remove inequalities rather than add to them, and the whataboutism replies from WA fans was predictable.

Having a small/poor club selling home games - not to a neutral venue (Bunbury) but to their opposition's home venue (Optus) - flies in the face of equalisation, as it was when we sold games to Sydney, Melbourne selling them to Brisbane etc (and having Collingwood 'host' us at Marvel this year).

 

[threenewpadlocks]

There is a general refusal by fans of AFL clubs to acknowledge the advantages their own clubs hold whilst crying poor at everyone else's. The AFL is not a level playing field for many reasons, but WA fans whigning that Vic clubs rarely have to travel but refusing to listen to the idea that their teams get 10 true home games is disingenous - the same as SA fans who can't acknowledge that Gather Round is a big leg up for them. The same goes on the flipside for Victorian clubs like ours, where we are lucky to have just 6 of 23 games outside of our home state (but far fewer non-neutral games).

Having a small/poor club selling home games not to a neutral venue (Bunbury) but to their opposition's home venue (Optus) flies in the face of equalisation, as it was when we sold games to Sydney, Melbourne selling them to Brisbane etc (and having Collingwood 'host' us at Marvel this year).

Maybe on the edges there's an argument that the big Melbourne clubs have an advantage relative to WA (I agree) but to claim that there's any sort of advantage to North, Saints, Dogs when those three teams host home games against Carlton, Essendon, where those two teams have more fans in the crowd, an equal familiarity with the ground etc. is just entirely wrong yet you see WA fans whine and whine about it.

A key factor is that the AFL doesn't guarantee priority ticketing for home GA members.

Our home games against Carlton and Essendon this season with crowds of 45k and 50k for each fixture had more away fans in it. Dogs GA members were dissuaded from attending because they were given no priority ticketing over away or non-membership GA ticket purchases, leading to greater away fans for our home game, leading to a lack of home ground advantage, even though clearly more than 25k and 22.5k Dogs fans would have liked to go to each game as a matter of first priority. That's a disadvantage only felt by the smaller Melbourne teams that interstate fans love to overlook.

I know the margin vs. Essendon 29 points but the game was close and Essendon were lucky with their goalkicking and arguably calmed by the fact that they weren't playing in front of a rabid opposition crowd (and some umpiring stuff). What's not to say that we would have won against Essendon in that early season fixture if it was 30k Dogs fans (ie the maximum amount of Dogs fans that would have attended and should have been given priority to sit as it was our home game) and 20k Essendon fans rather than the vice versa given that Essendon fans got the majority of tickets that wasn't given to the Dogs fans that had a reserved membership ticket.

 

[Sentinel]

Maybe on the edges there's an argument that the big Melbourne clubs have an advantage relative to WA (I agree) but to claim that there's any sort of advantage to North, Saints, Dogs when those three teams host home games against Carlton, Essendon, where those two teams have more fans in the crowd, an equal familiarity with the ground etc. is just entirely wrong yet you see WA fans whine and whine about it.

A key factor is that the AFL doesn't guarantee priority ticketing for home GA members.

Our home games against Carlton and Essendon this season with crowds of 45k and 50k for each fixture had more away fans in it. Dogs GA members were dissuaded from attending because they were given no priority ticketing over away or non-membership GA ticket purchases, leading to greater away fans for our home game, leading to a lack of home ground advantage, even though clearly more than 25k and 22.5k Dogs fans would have liked to go to each game as a matter of first priority. That's a disadvantage only felt by the smaller Melbourne teams that interstate fans love to overlook.

I know the margin vs. Essendon 29 points but the game was close and Essendon were lucky with their goalkicking and arguably calmed by the fact that they weren't playing in front of a rabid opposition crowd (and some umpiring stuff). What's not to say that we would have won against Essendon in that early season fixture if it was 30k Dogs fans (ie the maximum amount of Dogs fans that would have attended and should have been given priority to sit as it was our home game) and 20k Essendon fans rather than the vice versa given that Essendon fans got the majority of tickets that wasn't given to the Dogs fans that had a reserved membership ticket.

I disagree that crowd balance between two Marvel clubs playing against each other has that much of an impact on the result, short of it being 95% one sided, but certainly think the ground familiarity does. For that reason I'd never call a home game against any of North, StK, Essendon or Carlton anything more than a neutral match, likewise when we play away to them (besides all of the stuff which happens on the periphery). We get the advantage of not having to travel for these games but on the flipside don't get the added ground familiarity that we would with our own venue.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

I disagree that crowd balance between two Marvel clubs playing against each other has that much of an impact on the result, short of it being 95% one sided, but certainly think the ground familiarity does. For that reason I'd never call a home game against any of North, StK, Essendon or Carlton anything more than a neutral match, likewise when we play away to them (besides all of the stuff which happens on the periphery). We get the advantage of not having to travel for these games but on the flipside don't get the added ground familiarity that we would with our own venue.

Disagree your disagree. Been plenty of academic research (covid crowds) and in the AFL (see the Squiggle website) that fan supporters largely influencing umpiring is the driving force behind the statistical reality of home ground advantage.

 

[Sentinel]

Disagree your disagree. Been plenty of academic research (covid crowds) and in the AFL (see the Squiggle website) that fan supporters largely influencing umpiring is the driving force behind the statistical reality of home ground advantage.

Really? I'd be keen to see that. To be clear I'm talking about the effect of a relatively neutral crowd (which we'd get playing at Marvel against any Marvel team) being a bit more or a bit less than 50% for each side, not the effect of a home crowd against an interstate club (where you'd expect maybe 80%+ to be home fans) which I do think plays a part.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

To be clear I'm talking about the effect of a relatively neutral crowd (which we'd get playing at Marvel against any Marvel team) being a bit more or a bit less than 50% for each side, not the effect of a home crowd against an interstate club (where you'd expect maybe 80%+ to be home fans) which I do think plays a part.

Yeah but it's more like

Our home game vs Essendon - they have a 1 point advantage (they have sightly more fans in the crowd and equal ground familiarity)
Our away game vs Essendon - they have a 3 point advantage (they have even more fans in the crowd than their away game, and equal ground familiarity) - home and away net 4 point disadvantage

Our home game vs. West Coast - 7 point advantage. Our away game vs. West Coast - 11 game disadvantage - home and away net 4 point disadvantage.

Essendon home vs. West Coast - 9 point advantage. Essendon away vs. West Coast - 10 point disadvantage. Home and away 1 point net disadvantage.

We play 23 and not 34 games a year so the home and away maths aren't exact, but you just effectively add up the season, take away the 11 home/away paring matchups that aren't played, and then make the adjustments for changes in venue with secondary home grounds, gather round etc.

This nets out to us having about a 60 point disadvantage over the year or whatever, and West Coast get a 30 point advantage or whatever.

Geelong have the strongest advantage as they have an almost identical home ground advantage to interstate sides, but can effectively fill half the stadium in their away games in Melbourne. E.g. home/away vs. Hawks, in Geelong they'd have a 10 point advantage, but maybe a 1 point disadvantage Easter Monday as their designated away game. (Why I have no sympathy to their home finals at MCG and not in Geelong).

Some Useful Things I Learned About Football - Squiggle

I got into football stats because I wanted to understand why my team was so bad for so long and was there any hope for the future or should I just die. That was about 20 years ago. Along the way, I learned that plenty of common football wisdom is probably wrong. Stats people can … Continue...

squiggle.com.au

Home Advantage is Probably About Crowds​

Home advantage is definitely a thing. But people attribute it to a lot of different factors – especially travel distance and ground shape – that there isn’t much evidence for. But there is reason to believe that if you dominate a stadium with your team’s fans, it will exhibit home ground advantage, no matter who travelled where. The main vector is likely to be social pressure on umpiring decisions.

Travel is a burden, to be sure, and generates physical and logistical challenges that teams have to manage. But its effect on game-day performance seems small enough to be hard to detect at all. This is probably why a 50-minute drive to Geelong depresses the performance of Melbourne-based teams more than a flight to Queensland.

There was a chapter on this on the 2018 book Footballistics that basically looked at free kick rates. They controlled for the fact that there's both some natural variance in free kick rates and both teams have a statistical trend of winning or conceding more free kicks. Once those things were accounted for, there was a clear 2-3 free kick a game advantage statistically attached to having 50,000 more fans than the opposition in the stands.

COVID impacts in soccer allowed us to sufficiently study the same effects and what was found that a lot of soccer home ground advantage was found in refereeing, where referees were more willing to give yellow cards to away players (due to the crowd), which provided an advantage through both the difference in quality of defending up to the point you know that you may risk getting a yellow, or simply having play more minutes on a yellow: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37972063/

 

[Thunderoad]

Considering how much the WA teams travel I’m fine with them getting these extra games.

Their home ground advantage over just about every other team in the competition offsets at least some of the travel.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Just on the above it's why I want to highlights how much there is a structural disadvantage to the Docklands tenants.

There's a reason that us, Saints, North (and to a lesser extent) Melbourne have had so little success in the Docklands era AFL post 2000.

We're the smaller teams that shunts us to Docklands. That means we have the weakest home ground advantage as when we play home/away against Melbourne teams, although in theory the home ground advantage should equal out for each home/away paring, that's not the case, as I demonstrated above, we play nominally home games with more away fans.

Throw in the MCG home ground familiarity factor as a portion of HGA in finals and that's another factor - it's not our usual home ground, which is worth another point or two.

A few points here and there may not seem like a lot but consider how each point of advantage influences your % chance of winning a given game, your % chance of finishing in a ladder position, and then the basis of the maths of double chances, home/away finals etc. Then add this up over 24 years and see how it influences who wins the flag.

100 points over the season may not seem like much (it is just over 4 points a game and how many matches are really 4 points or less) but 100 points is 5% points on the ladder. The difference between a percentage of 115% and 120% everyone will agree is the difference between an outstanding and a good team, and influences chances of winning games and beating another team on the ladder position.

In 2017, Essendon, West Coast and Melbourne finished 7th, 8th, 9th all on 12 wins with percentages of 106.5%, 105.7% and 105.2%.

The difference between Essendon and Melbourne was just 27 points. The difference between West Coast and Melbourne was just 8 points.

Melbourne sold a home game to Alice Springs (around that home ground advantage). West Coast and Essendon clearly have advantages over Melbourne in terms of home ground advantage that was clearly the difference that season.

Essendon got thumped in the first weeks of finals and West Coast drew then kicked a goal after the siren, then got thumped in the Semi. Neither gave winning the flag a crack but you can argue built upon that appearance for potential future success. Do West Coast win the flag in 2018 without qualifying for the finals in 2017, which they arguably did as a worse team than Melbourne that year, but only finishing above them due to the accumulations of home ground advantage that (I would characterise as unfair) over the course of the entire season?

These inequities build upon each other and reinforce each other, so you can't make an argument why it's unfair without interrogating the whole system. Yes, Melbourne have an accumulated disadvantage because their fans didn't show up in 2017, and one more fan attending a game makes a statistical impact on it being more likely they get more points because an umpire gets a bit more verbal abuse from the fan that didn't show up. But why didn't that fan show up? Because he's less keen on going, because his team didn't make finals, because of the cycle being reinforced because they missed out on finals etc. etc. etc.

Essendon are a bigger financial club than us, but they can be a bigger financial club than us, because they can sell General Admission away games as an overall package because they know that it's until capacity and Dogs and North clubs cannot lock out a GA accessing fan from attending their home game, as much as I would like us to. The AFL doesn't let us. That is unfair, and North then have to sell games to further their disadvantage to make up for the financial difference that Essendon remain a bigger club than them because of these inbuilt inequities, reinforcing it.

The AFL contractually schedules 5 Away Collingwood games at the MCG and gives them special ticketing access to those away games, for instance, meaning that they're contractually ensuring that Collingwood have a far lesser disadvantage to their 11 away games than if it was fairly and randomly distributed on average that all other Melbourne clubs have to receive. For the fact that they only play 11 of the other 17 teams away, only 4-5 of them have MCG as their home ground, and they travel less as a result. That is a structural advantage contracted to Collingwood that undermines the sporting integrity of the league, and when Collingwood find success, we all attribute it to their coach or their players or their recruitment or whatever rather than the fact it's bloody written into the rules of the league. Ridiculous.

 

[geoffjennings79]

From the ABC article about the move of 2 x Hobart games to Perth:




"higher profile Vic clubs" - unlikely to be Hawks, as they've got their Launceston base (only played once as the away team at Bellerive, in 2022).

Collingwood and Essendon (and us!!) have NEVER played at Bellerive. Would the AFL really schedule a North v Coll or North v Ess at Bellerive? (without some sort of "compensation"?)

Cats actually played there this year (and 3 overall), Blues only once, in 2018. Doubt Cats play there again next year.

I wonder who the "mix" will be in 2026/2027. I'm tipping it will be us, Demons and Saints... and maybe Blues, for the 2 games.