Completing the season

[tiers 2,840]

With all the dramas about positive tests, hubs, quarantines, self isolating, forbidden movements etc etc etc I think it is time to revisit a plan from early April.

Managing multiple teams in multiple states with flying and travel issues, I propose again the following. Build a hub in Tassie.

Tassie which was already socially distancing itself from the rest of the world, seems like a good starting point.

Send 18 teams with coaches and staff to Tassie, wait 2 weeks then start training for a lightning premiership season based on a truncated series of matches.

Every team plays every other team once (there is of course no home ground advantage) over a short period, say two games a week with minimum 3 days rest with a new game every night for the season to clean up with the TV viewing (just like T20 cricket). If the season runs into spring and summer, so what as it never gets too hot in Tassie and there is no international cricket season to protect.

Top eight teams make the finals and an express final series to be played for the premiership. If the virus is under control, play the GF on the G on any day of the week so as not to upset the precious cricket crowd. We will of course be gentle with the surface of the drop in wickets but all those studs would only aerate the soil.

Non-stop footy every night on the telly, saturation coverage in the media and around the bbq and cooler (if we are allowed), the locals can attend in club colours (they will also have been in quarantine) and a season to remember. Who would go back to the old ways?

It's yours Gil. I'll let you work out the details of times, duration, number of players in the squad and on the bench, payments etc. But no change to 18 on the field although, like in the old days, the forward and back pockets are for rest  and the resting players cannot chase the ball but can only attack the ball if it comes to them (they will need their rest).

Royalties welcomed. 10% of my cut to the MFC so long as I get my 2020 MFC/MCC scarf.

I got my scarf so 10% donation to MFC gladly donated.

[tiers 2,840]

In another thread, I suggested the following player management system.

They are now talking about recovery times and turn around times for the players. If it is to be a problem (as Zorko says) then change the format/concept.

Each team has a squad of, say, 36 players and their respective game times are rationed by quarters. For example, over five games in three weeks no player can play more than, say, 16 quarters, the equivalent of four matches each calculated as 22 x 4 quarters per game x 5 games = 440 available quarters/36 = 12+ average.

Does this mean that players will be rested for whole games? Yes it does unless there is another way to manage the loads. Perhaps play some only 3 quarters in a game, rotate by quarters, pick a side as horses for courses (eg. stack with defenders against high scoring opponents).

Rationalise positions - who needs a ruckman unless playing against Maxie? Who needs a permanent full forward if dusty or danger play in the goal square? Inside players v outside players - think of the choices for the coaches. Get rid of 666.

Think of the excitement in each game as these moves are played out. Mcgoose and dwayne would soil themselves. Bruce would spend the whole game asking silly questions like doesn't he, wouldn't he. 

For 2020 season only with a self destruct button. But when 2020 is the asterisk year, let it be for the footy not the virus.

[tiers 2,840]

Now playing toiges. What next, playing freo on Rottnest Island? Or filth on French Island. I hear Fiji is clear of covid and looking for tourists.

A lightning premiership as outlined above is surely more and more appealing by the day. The constant changing and adjusting of the draw is harming our great game and messing with my mind.

Better to have an exciting, if somewhat different, lightning premiership season played in Tassie (or NT)  than this farce happening every week where we are the mercy of politicians and false positives.

Gil, bite the bullet and show them who is boss.

[tiers 2,840]

This strategy above to complete the season can be adapted to Queensland. If 2 weeks are allowed for quarantine and then another 11 rounds to complete the season, it will be mid to late October.

By then Queensland will be too hot and humid for finals so, unless they can come back to Melbourne, the only answer is to condense the season into 7 weeks with games every 4 - 5 days. That way there are still 2 weeks left (by my reckoning) for a finals season finishing on the last Saturday in September.

Three rounds of finals in 2.5 weeks. Using the player management system outlined above, this can all work and whoever comes out on top will have earned it. If crowds are going to be mostly absent then a grand final on Wednesday 30 September will generate the biggest TV audience in history.

It is critical that it finish before October because only thew filth have won GFs in October and we can't allow that to happen  again.