- Sep 13, 2014
- 754
- 374
- AFL Club
- Essendon
- Banned
- #251
I think people are forgetting 1 key factor of finals grounds. The ability to fence it off. Grounds like Clayton make it as a finals grounds a lot of time even when the surface is terrible. I played a grand final there in absolute slop. But it's ridiculously easy to fence it off, and that's one of the requirements.
Do you think they'd ever be able to fence off Sandown's ground easily? Get a decent ground in there? Park cars anywhere? I was using Sandown as an example, but I can't think of many D3 grounds that don't suffer similar problems.
Giving the league full access to a "suitable ground" like Cheltenham or Mordiallic, and telling all D3 clubs to get together and run the day at a ground that isn't theirs, seems short sighted. You can't expect those clubs to just hand over keys to their entire facilities to members of 10-12 other clubs for a day.
Don't have to hand over the keys as all food and drink outside. Whatever the result which may also include using 3rd party grounds, I can assure you that equalisation is the big league word in 2015. So few clubs have gained massive returns from finals because they have a fence around their ground whilst 80% miss out...why?. Those cashed up finals clubs are now using those finds to pilfer players from other poorer clubs unable to match them. Look at the transfers so far and the clubs running finals. Blind freddy can see whats happening here.
The tide is turning and there must be change.