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What is the worst team in AFL history?
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In early 2010 under Dimma we were just deplorable. No players, no structure, no heart
Carlton 2012
Disagree - i think Fitzroy of '96 would have beaten Sydney of '93...splitting hairs, but the Swans were putrid to the extreme.
Who was last in 1990 btw (since we're looking at AFL history).
Like everyone else it's Fitzroy 96 for me, hands down. It was sad and everyone who saw it wanted it to be better for them. If anyone ever doubts the importance of spirit and belief in football then they should study what happened to this team in the 90s.
The last ever Fitzroy team was pretty disgusting
Agreed. The Roys were horrible but it didn't help that the club as a whole were on death row. If that had not been the case they would have been more competitive and definitely handled the Swans of 93 who were absurdly horrible. Like I said they lost to the freaking Bears (who were a horrible 2nd bottom unit themselves) by 27 goals. Think the Bears may still hold the scoring record from a first half of footy from that match. Like much of the 93 season had to be seen to be believed.
Actually, the Bears were OK in the first half of '93, especially at home.
But, yeah, that was a not-quite-up-to-par performance by Sydney that day.
But, yeah, that was a not-quite-up-to-par performance by Sydney that day.
RussellEbertHandball
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The club was playing with no spirit, no rescources so they got smashed, but the actual last team had a fair bit of quality. The final team that played for Fitzroy against Freo at Subi on 1st Sept 1996
B.. Brett Chandler.... Jarrod Molloy....Stephen Paxman
HB Martin Pike..........Rowan Warfe....Shane Clayton
C.. John Barker.........Simon Atkins.....Nick Carter
HF Brad Boyd...........John McCarthy...Chris Johnson
FF Marty Warry........Simon Hawkins....John Rombotis
R.. Matthew Primus...Matthew Dent.....Scott Bammford
I/C Peter Doyle........Jeff Hogg............Danny Morton
17 of that 21 went and played AFL at other clubs, several hundred gamers and many were under 22.
Memories
RussellEbertHandball
Flick pass expert
Johnny Rombotis is now running around in the VAFA somewhere.
Doss
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Sydney in 1992-93 were almost on death row too- between the 1992 and 1993 seasons they were very nearly killed off by a plan by Carlton to play their 'away' games at the SCG (while continuing to use Princes Park for 'home' games). But this isn't the thread to go into that in detail...
Sydney in 1993 had many horrible performances, but overall I think the numbers suggest it's hard to mount a case for them being worse than 1996 Fitzroy.
Here's a link to each of them:
http://stats.rleague.com/afl/teams/swans/allgames.html#1993
http://stats.rleague.com/afl/teams/fitzroy/allgames.html#1996
Fitzroy 1996 had a percentage of 49.5%. Sydney 1993 had a perctentage of 63.3%.
Their one win aside, the closest Fitzroy got to anyone was a 15 point defeat to Footscray in Round 18- and Footscray finished second last that year. They put in a few other competitive efforts (21 and 31 point losses to Hawthorn, 32 point loss to Adelaide, 40 points to Collingwood at Vic Park), but apart from that they were wiped off the park every week. They lost by 105 points or more four times, and also lost by 99, 92, 87, 86 and 85. And then several 9-12 goal losses. Fitzroy's 1996 season makes for truly depressing reading.
Sydney 1993 was not quite as bad. They had a couple astronomical losses (including 162 and 124 point defeats), and then several other huge ones (93, 92 twice, 86) and then a few large ones (62 and 57 twice).
However where they put their nose ahead of 1996 Fitzroy is that they managed some more competitive efforts. They got to within 7 goals of Carlton and Adelaide, within five goals of Richmond, four goals of Geelong and Footscray, 38 and 37 point losses to St Kilda.
Their one win for the year (Melbourne, 40 points) was against a better side than the Fremantle side that Fitzroy beat in 1996.
Lastly, what is really interesting about 1993 Sydney is that two of their best efforts for the year were against the eventual grand finalists- Essendon and Carlton.
They ran Essendon (the eventual premiers) to 21 points late in 1993, at the MCG. They even had more scoring shots that day; 13.18 against Essendon's 18.9. And then, even more impressively, actually led Carlton by a point (at Princes Park, no less!) with a couple of minutes to go, before Rohan Welsh kicked a couple behinds and enabled the Blues to win by a point. Ultimately, this failure to beat Sydney comprehensively cost Carlton top spot on percentage.
I should qualify all this by saying that I am too young to remember these games. But I really think the numbers suggest that, as bad as 1993 Sydney were, they didn't quite reach the levels of sustained non-competitiveness that the poor Roys of 1996 did.
RussellEbertHandball
Flick pass expert
If you look at Sydney between 1990 and 1995 when they never won more than 8 games in a year, but they regularly matched up well against Carlton. About 2/3rds of those games were either swans wins or very competitive performances. In fact it was 5W and 5L to the swans and they had that 1 pt loss at princess park mentioned above and 9 pt loss at the SCG in 1992.
http://www.stats.rleague.com/afl/teams/swans/allgames_tm.html#3
I reckon part of it was to do with Mark Bayes being able to hold Kernahan in most of those games.
Even in 1995 when Carlton had won the first 7 games and only lost 2 for the whole season they came up to the SCG and were smashed by the swans by over 10 goals. Lockett kicked a bag, O'Loughlin chipped in, Roos played a blinder loose in defence, Lewis, Kelly, Kickett, Bayes etc played well. I remember that game well because I went with my Carlton mate. He had laughed the previous year when Lockett destroyed the swans and the Saints came back from 50pts down to win. Karma has hit him as he had to witness a Carlton loss in Rd 21 1994 + that 1995 win + another 7 before the Carlton finally beat the swans in Sydney last year.
http://www.stats.rleague.com/afl/teams/swans/allgames_tm.html#3
I reckon part of it was to do with Mark Bayes being able to hold Kernahan in most of those games.
Even in 1995 when Carlton had won the first 7 games and only lost 2 for the whole season they came up to the SCG and were smashed by the swans by over 10 goals. Lockett kicked a bag, O'Loughlin chipped in, Roos played a blinder loose in defence, Lewis, Kelly, Kickett, Bayes etc played well. I remember that game well because I went with my Carlton mate. He had laughed the previous year when Lockett destroyed the swans and the Saints came back from 50pts down to win. Karma has hit him as he had to witness a Carlton loss in Rd 21 1994 + that 1995 win + another 7 before the Carlton finally beat the swans in Sydney last year.
Doss
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Quite right.
Also worth mentioning was Sydney's eight point defeat of Carlton at the SCG late in 1994- this, as much as any result, cost Carlton top spot in 1994- the second successive year Carlton were thwarted by Sydney.
In fact, the third successive year, for in 1992 they had lost to Sydney early in the year at Princes Park. Carlton missed the finals that year by percentage only- that missed win against Sydney was ultimately the 'one that got away'.
Overall, Sydney leads Carlton 22 wins to 11 since the beginning of 1990.
That game has been a subject of speculation/suspicion over the years.
RussellEbertHandball
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About what?
Doss
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Speculation of what kind, exactly? Do tell me more.
In terms of the dominance that Carlton showed in 1995, that Sydney game and the St Kilda game the week after it (where Carlton kicked 3.6 for the whole day and lost by 56 points) are incredible anomalies. They stick out like a pair of sore thumbs. Sydney and St Kilda were nowhere even near finals that year- yet delivered Carlton their only two losses for the season. By 72 and 56 points, to boot.
Gambling-related concerns. There were rumblings at the time and a couple of oblique references in the media many years later (at least, I assume this was the game alluded to).
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has to be the 93 swans that i have seen,didnt they lose 26 games over a 2 year period at one stage?
Early 90s Swans were awful. I remember hearing a radio interview with Barassi when he took over, reporter asked 'so can we expect to see the Swans back in the finals soon', his reply was simply 'You are smoking something right?'
Those Swans were pretty bad, true...once they got that win ove Melbourne though, you could start to see the results of the Barassi coaching appointment...he really kickstarted that team...
The Bears in 1992 were terrible as well, but you could see they'd stripped the club of the deadwood and were going somewhere with it...things got better after Geelong kicked the record score, and the core group became the threepeat Lions...
The winner here has to be Fitzroy in 1996, as people have said...
And at the end of this year, we'll probably be able to nominate Gold Coast as a contender...at least with GWS can see something that reminds you of those early Bears, but the Suns right now are terrible...average list, game plan gone to hell...
The Bears in 1992 were terrible as well, but you could see they'd stripped the club of the deadwood and were going somewhere with it...things got better after Geelong kicked the record score, and the core group became the threepeat Lions...
The winner here has to be Fitzroy in 1996, as people have said...
And at the end of this year, we'll probably be able to nominate Gold Coast as a contender...at least with GWS can see something that reminds you of those early Bears, but the Suns right now are terrible...average list, game plan gone to hell...
The 20 teams with the lowest points differential (points scored minus points conceded divided by matches played) in a season, as an another indicator of "worst".
Points differential allows for a more direct comparison of eras with different scoring rates than does for and against percentage. (For example due to lower match scores up to 1906 in no season were less than 30% of opponent's scores doubled. From 1972 to 1982 no season had more than 13.04% of opponent's scores doubled whereas the margins were more similar - for example 1906 had 35% of matches with margins of 40 points or more as did 1980.)
The list at left is from 1990 when the League replaced Victorian with Australian on its letterhead.
The list at right is all of AFL history 1897-2011 as officially defined by the League. (Four teams make both lists.)
Points differential allows for a more direct comparison of eras with different scoring rates than does for and against percentage. (For example due to lower match scores up to 1906 in no season were less than 30% of opponent's scores doubled. From 1972 to 1982 no season had more than 13.04% of opponent's scores doubled whereas the margins were more similar - for example 1906 had 35% of matches with margins of 40 points or more as did 1980.)
The list at left is from 1990 when the League replaced Victorian with Australian on its letterhead.
The list at right is all of AFL history 1897-2011 as officially defined by the League. (Four teams make both lists.)
The indication is that these teams accumulated a significant number thrashings
and any wins that they may have had, did little to offset this.
Meanwhile in 2012 after 12 matches, Melbourne are -39.42, Gold Coast -49.67 and GWS -59.50.
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