The 17-5 idea has been floated before but is flawed for many reasons. For one, wherever the line is drawn (here it's between 12th and 13th), that line is arbitrary and there may be nothing come Round 18 to split 12th and 13th bar minor percentage. 12th may have also had an easier travel fixture compared to 13th, for example. It also robs the season of memorable late-season winning streaks (e.g. Richmond in 2014) and tension towards the end of the year as to who will make the finals (as opposed to who plays whom in the finals, far less interesting). 

Not to mention the issues associated with fixturing on the run (given the possibility that 12 and 13 change positions in the 17th game, you can't draw up the final 5 weeks until the conclusion of the 17th game. How do clubs sell tickets to games they don't know exist? Which clubs get the extra home game in the first 17 weeks (extra certainty in ticket sales etc.)?).

It's a noble idea which does not work.

My preference, at this stage, is for a fixture whereby clubs are required (by a rule, not by some shady "custom" written in an article on the AFL website which could change at any minute) to play each club a certain number of times, both home and way, over a certain number of years. That way, some clubs will benefit some years (inevitable in a 22-round year) but it will balance out over, say, 4 years (and avoids situations where clubs don't spend years and years without playing an interstate club in their home ground, I recall Hawthorn played Brisbane in Brisbane in 2015 for the first time in like 8 years or something).

40 minutes ago, pinkshark said:

Eddies idea itself is as stupid as I have ever heard.  So stupid in fact that it scares me intensely that the AFL 'rule changers' may in fact think its a reasonable idea.  Really.  I'm scared.  His point about making the bottom half interesting and meaningful needs exploring though.  But not with the shite he just offered up.  I dont have any clue what to do but having lived in the Uk for over ten years and getting 'into the EPL and world football in general, I have to say that one of the real genius of football competitions worldwide are the relegation battles.  Its pretty simple really.  The bottom clubs are fighting for their lives.  They have to earn the right to participate in the premier league.  Makes for exciting, emotional stuff.  Great for fans.  Or break your heart.  Of course I get it that most of us aussies cannot fathom this idea.  In fact I dont even reckon we would be emotionally strong enough to deal with a Melbourne/Collingwood relegation game.  I'd be all over the place!  Anyway we are petracking towards not being in relegation battles in the future (if they were to happen). As for where the second tier competition comes from well I dunno, but, you could start with unifying WAFL, SANFL, QAFL, VFL etc etc, into one competition. Conference these all up (NCAA style)and call it the Championship say.   Winners of this granny and the minor premiership, goes up, wooden spooners and second last of afl go down.  Imagine.  We need to beat Collingwood (losing doesnt matter as we are sitting on top, 12 points clear)to ensure their relegation to having to play a regular home and away game at North Ballarat.  Wouldnt even have to be the pies.  Saints, doggies, cats, hawks, any of them, all of them.  Of course, stadium size at some of these non traditional afl clubs is a problem.  But it's not mine.     

There is absolutely no way on gods green earth the the fixers who run the afl, would EVER allow Colonwood, Essedon, Carlton, or Richmond to be relegated. EVER.

I dont know why anyone would even bring that absurd notion up, when referring to the afl.

I think the only way to make a completely fair draw is to play everybody twice, One at home and one away.

That makes 34 games.

To combat the extra games

- I would scrap the NAB cup, straight into the real thing. Clubs to organise there own practice games if they want them.

-Play footy seven days a week (AFL would love this) with teams only getting 5-6 day brakes

-Increase the team list size too say 50-55 with a player only aloud to play around 25 of the 34  home and away games for the season. Clubs would have to learn how to manage their lists, rest good players against weaker sides (might make for a few upsets).

-probably make for larger number of  bad games but every sporting comp in the world has bad games.

-still doesn’t fix the problems with dead rubbers.

Probably a bad idea but I like footy, the more the better:)

Note- I’m not a word smith so please excuse my spelling and grammar.

Not enough players to cater to 55 

12 minutes ago, jackofalltrades said:

Increase the team list size too say 50-55 with a player only aloud to play around 25 of the 34  home and away games for the season. Clubs would have to learn how to manage their lists, rest good players against weaker sides (might make for a few upsets).

I like this idea, rather than having two byes in a year , (they are really boring weeks when there's only 5 games on) make bigger lists and make players have rostered days off. 

3 hours ago, beelzebub said:

I reckon a final 16 is the go. Only those battling out the spoon don't get a look in 

maybe a final 20 one day? 

the H&A comp could become the NAB cup?   we could all play finals for 10 weeks.  ed's definitely onto something this time !!!

 

The obvious answer is obviously two leagues of eight teams each and a Final Four in each league. To ensure relegation/promotion is interesting, l would start with Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon, etc, initially starting in the "B League" with GWS, Freo, Gold Coast, Dees, and others who need practice playing Premierships, comprising the inaugural "A League". With promotion of only one "B League" team occurring annually, we may see a slight adjustment of egos and the order of things whilst Collingwood and Essendon fight out their minor Premiership and we try and locate the key to our cabinet which stores the Premiership Cups for the real thing.

30 minutes ago, CBDees said:

The obvious answer is obviously two leagues of eight teams each and a Final Four in each league. To ensure relegation/promotion is interesting, l would start with Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon, etc, initially starting in the "B League" with GWS, Freo, Gold Coast, Dees, and others who need practice playing Premierships, comprising the inaugural "A League". With promotion of only one "B League" team occurring annually, we may see a slight adjustment of egos and the order of things whilst Collingwood and Essendon fight out their minor Premiership and we try and locate the key to our cabinet which stores the Premiership Cups for the real thing.

The trouble with that plan is that the B league would be regarded by everyone as the A league.

I like the idea of a knockout competition. Last team standing gets to knockout Eddie.

27 minutes ago, sue said:

The trouble with that plan is that the B league would be regarded by everyone as the A league.

That's a good thing as we hate their supporters anyway! Be happy to play our final at the G whilst their GF rotates between Victoria Park, Princess Park and Windy Hill.

12 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

The 17-5 idea has been floated before but is flawed for many reasons. For one, wherever the line is drawn (here it's between 12th and 13th), that line is arbitrary and there may be nothing come Round 18 to split 12th and 13th bar minor percentage. 12th may have also had an easier travel fixture compared to 13th, for example. It also robs the season of memorable late-season winning streaks (e.g. Richmond in 2014) and tension towards the end of the year as to who will make the finals (as opposed to who plays whom in the finals, far less interesting). 

Not to mention the issues associated with fixturing on the run (given the possibility that 12 and 13 change positions in the 17th game, you can't draw up the final 5 weeks until the conclusion of the 17th game. How do clubs sell tickets to games they don't know exist? Which clubs get the extra home game in the first 17 weeks (extra certainty in ticket sales etc.)?).

It's a noble idea which does not work.

My preference, at this stage, is for a fixture whereby clubs are required (by a rule, not by some shady "custom" written in an article on the AFL website which could change at any minute) to play each club a certain number of times, both home and way, over a certain number of years. That way, some clubs will benefit some years (inevitable in a 22-round year) but it will balance out over, say, 4 years (and avoids situations where clubs don't spend years and years without playing an interstate club in their home ground, I recall Hawthorn played Brisbane in Brisbane in 2015 for the first time in like 8 years or something).

 

 

12 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

The 17-5 idea has been floated before but is flawed for many reasons. For one, wherever the line is drawn (here it's between 12th and 13th), that line is arbitrary and there may be nothing come Round 18 to split 12th and 13th bar minor percentage. 12th may have also had an easier travel fixture compared to 13th, for example. It also robs the season of memorable late-season winning streaks (e.g. Richmond in 2014) and tension towards the end of the year as to who will make the finals (as opposed to who plays whom in the finals, far less interesting). 

Not to mention the issues associated with fixturing on the run (given the possibility that 12 and 13 change positions in the 17th game, you can't draw up the final 5 weeks until the conclusion of the 17th game. How do clubs sell tickets to games they don't know exist? Which clubs get the extra home game in the first 17 weeks (extra certainty in ticket sales etc.)?).

It's a noble idea which does not work.

My preference, at this stage, is for a fixture whereby clubs are required (by a rule, not by some shady "custom" written in an article on the AFL website which could change at any minute) to play each club a certain number of times, both home and way, over a certain number of years. That way, some clubs will benefit some years (inevitable in a 22-round year) but it will balance out over, say, 4 years (and avoids situations where clubs don't spend years and years without playing an interstate club in their home ground, I recall Hawthorn played Brisbane in Brisbane in 2015 for the first time in like 8 years or something).

In the "compromised draw" thread (it's now on page 2) I posted my suggestion for a rotating draw, and yes it takes 4 years to complete a cycle. If you can be bothered have a look, it will never happen because of the need for certain teams to play each other twice for revenue ie pies/bombers pies/carlton  carlton/tigers swans/Giants etc.

11 hours ago, jackofalltrades said:

I think the only way to make a completely fair draw is to play everybody twice, One at home and one away.

That makes 34 games.

To combat the extra games

- I would scrap the NAB cup, straight into the real thing. Clubs to organise there own practice games if they want them.

-Play footy seven days a week (AFL would love this) with teams only getting 5-6 day brakes

-Increase the team list size too say 50-55 with a player only aloud to play around 25 of the 34  home and away games for the season. Clubs would have to learn how to manage their lists, rest good players against weaker sides (might make for a few upsets).

-probably make for larger number of  bad games but every sporting comp in the world has bad games.

-still doesn’t fix the problems with dead rubbers.

Probably a bad idea but I like footy, the more the better:)

Note- I’m not a word smith so please excuse my spelling and grammar.

- players/AFLPA wouldn't agree 

- we can't even turn up for 22 games

- the comp is still getting over the expansion clubs, talent pool already stretched

- footy seven days a week is too much, fri-sun with the odd Thursday game is enough 

13 hours ago, P-man said:

I had to actually listen to the audio to understand what he means.

As I understand it, the top 12 after 17 rounds play off in the last 6 rounds to form a top 10.

Bottom 6 play off for an 11th wildcard spot. The NAB Cup winner takes up the 12th spot in the finals. I don't know what happens if the NAB Cup winner finishes in the top 10. I assume the team finishing 11th comes in.

I immediately hate the idea of 12 teams in an 18 team comp playing finals, and the pre-season is meant to be a hit out rather than competitive. A team that wins the NAB could potentially spend the rest of the season preparing the team for finals. Teams on the edge of the bottom six could tank in order to play weaker teams for a wildcard entry. There are so many potential downfalls.

I don't mind the teams playing each other once for 17 rounds as a starting point, but there should be no more than 8 teams playing finals. History tell us it's invariably only the top 4 that has a chance of winning it.

HA! Interesting thought!

Hawthorn go hard and win the NAB Cup, then tank all season, rotating and resting players. Their games aren't worth watching because they aren't trying. Then they get a nice easy finals run (comparatively) because of the low ladder position.

11 minutes ago, Choke said:

HA! Interesting thought!

Hawthorn go hard and win the NAB Cup, then tank all season, rotating and resting players. Their games aren't worth watching because they aren't trying. Then they get a nice easy finals run (comparatively) because of the low ladder position.

Someone's twigged

slow news week. eddie needs to divert publicity after his association in shane warne's charity fiasco

12 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

The 17-5 idea has been floated before but is flawed for many reasons. For one, wherever the line is drawn (here it's between 12th and 13th), that line is arbitrary and there may be nothing come Round 18 to split 12th and 13th bar minor percentage. 12th may have also had an easier travel fixture compared to 13th, for example. It also robs the season of memorable late-season winning streaks (e.g. Richmond in 2014) and tension towards the end of the year as to who will make the finals (as opposed to who plays whom in the finals, far less interesting). 

Not to mention the issues associated with fixturing on the run (given the possibility that 12 and 13 change positions in the 17th game, you can't draw up the final 5 weeks until the conclusion of the 17th game. How do clubs sell tickets to games they don't know exist? Which clubs get the extra home game in the first 17 weeks (extra certainty in ticket sales etc.)?).

It's a noble idea which does not work.

My preference, at this stage, is for a fixture whereby clubs are required (by a rule, not by some shady "custom" written in an article on the AFL website which could change at any minute) to play each club a certain number of times, both home and way, over a certain number of years. That way, some clubs will benefit some years (inevitable in a 22-round year) but it will balance out over, say, 4 years (and avoids situations where clubs don't spend years and years without playing an interstate club in their home ground, I recall Hawthorn played Brisbane in Brisbane in 2015 for the first time in like 8 years or something).

 

12 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

 

Your idea works in theory TU, hower they'd need to plan the fixture 17 years in advance to make it fair.

22 games a year over 17 years = 374 games.

374 / 17 (number of teams to play) = 22 (11 home & 11 away).

That's a long way to plan ahead.

I don't mind a conference system of 6, 6, 6.

North/West Conference: West Coast, Fremantle, GWS, Sydney, Brisbane, Gold Coast

Central Conference: Adelaide, Port, Geelong, Bulldogs, Essendon, North

South/East Conference: Melbourne, Collingwood, Richmond, Hawthorn, St Kilda, Carlton.

Just top two of each go to a 6 team finals system like we had in 91-93. Use to only be 4 out of 12 in finals, so  don't see why 6 out of 18 doesn't work.

1 hour ago, CBDees said:

The obvious answer is obviously two leagues of eight teams each and a Final Four in each league. To ensure relegation/promotion is interesting, l would start with Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon, etc, initially starting in the "B League" with GWS, Freo, Gold Coast, Dees, and others who need practice playing Premierships, comprising the inaugural "A League". With promotion of only one "B League" team occurring annually, we may see a slight adjustment of egos and the order of things whilst Collingwood and Essendon fight out their minor Premiership and we try and locate the key to our cabinet which stores the Premiership Cups for the real thing.

I like it but what happens to two current teams. What i would do would be to split the league into two divisions based on ladder position.

Every year two teams get promoted/relegated.

 After playing everyone twice. the team on top of the ladder in division 1 is automatically promoted to the premiership. The remaining eight teams play a normal final eight with the winners winning promotion.

Bottom four teams go into a lottery system for the draft so their is no(or little as possible) tanking.

The team finishing 9th in the Premiership automatically relegated. The final eight battle it out for the flag although the two losers in the Elimination Finals play off to see who else is down to division 1.

I know  a system like this would never be approved by the general football public but at the very least each team would get to play each other twice and it would hopefully make each game more competitive with not as many blowouts. 

He only brings this up now because they are on the slide and have been for a while. He's a passionate supporter - and I get that coz I am too - but lets see if he is flying that flag if Collingwood are a regular top 4 again

On 27/1/2016 at 6:22 PM, Deecisive said:

just another attempt to find some way to give Collingwood another chance at getting into the finals without getting into the final 8. Nice try eddie, but final 8 is more than enough as those in 6-8 position really are only also rans to pad out the finals.

Their best chance would've been putting Buckley's senior coaching aspirations on the backburner and sticking with Malthouse.

It's the epic fail that continues to fail, fantastic stuff.

19 hours ago, Carlos Danger said:

Their best chance would've been putting Buckley's senior coaching aspirations on the backburner and sticking with Malthouse.

It's the epic fail that continues to fail, fantastic stuff.

 

Shows Eddie loves Bucks more than he loves Collingwood.

On 27/1/2016 at 5:49 PM, daisycutter said:

3 conferences - 6 each

play own conference twice, others once ( 5x2=10 + 12x1=12 - total 22 games)

top 2 in each conference to finals plus 2 wildcards gives a final 8

easy peasy

Excellent idea dc ... keeps the 22 games, spreads the interest and solves the issue that the current ladder poses (a bit too cumbersome in my eyes)

I'd take things a step further and have initial "group stages" (as what happens in the soccer World cup) for part 1 of the finals series ... 2 groups of 4 could all play each other once (over 3 weeks) with the top 2 teams from each group* to meet in preliminary finals (with the GF to follow) A 5 week finals series with no week off for any team.

The current finals system works too well. There's nothing that is particularly wrong with it but let's face it, the teams outside of the top 4 continue to just make up the numbers ... it's time to spruce things up.

 

"The higher placed team (or higher seeded team) would always have home ground advantage in all the finals games (except for the GF) The groups could be made of a mix of seeded teams that have qualified for the finals (say, teams seeded 1, 4, 5 & 8 in one group with those teams seeded 2, 3, 6 & 7 in the other group)

 

 

.

The extra week of finals will put the kybosh on your plan pretty quickly. 

22 h&a (+ a bye week)

4 finals weeks

 

13 hours ago, biggestred said:

The extra week of finals will put the kybosh on your plan pretty quickly. 

22 h&a (+ a bye week)

4 finals weeks

Just add an extra week or do away with the bye*

The MCG doesn't need to be available for cricket until mid November (to get the surface ready for cricket from mid December onwards) ... Shield games should be played elsewhere (Junction oval, Albert ground)

It's just a pure hypothetical anyway ... realistically, the AFL aren't going to change the format of the season proper or the finals ... at least, that won't be happening in the foreseeable future.

 

 

*I'm not sure the bye idea will last long anyway (in my opinion) ... the fans won't like having a whole weekend without any footy. Also, the AFL will be handing the NRL a free hit over that non-footy weekend ... and that's not good for business.

 

 

.

Under this arrangement could the MFC play finals again?

Eddie's idea is rubbish but the 17-5 system has real merit.

One of the worst things about the current fixture is how teams don't all play each other after 17 rounds.