Final Nine Proposal (if Tassie enter the comp)

[MadAsHell 4,088]

Top 10 would work better than top 9. We first had the top 8 with only 15 teams in 94, so no reason we can't do a top 10 with 19.

Stick with a 4 week finals format.

Week 1:

1st Qualifying Final 1 v 2 - Winner gets the week off and hosts a home Preliminary Final. Loser will keep 2nd seed (on opposite side of draw) and host a home Semi Final.

2nd Qualifying Final 3 v 4 - Both sides will play home Semi Finals the following week, but the winner will avoid the side of the draw the winner of the 1st Qualifying Final is on.

1st Elimination Final 7 v 8 - Winner progresses to Semi Final and play the loser of 1st Qualifying.

2nd Elimination Final 6 v 9 - Winner progress to Semi Final and play the winner of 2nd Qualifying Final.

3rd Elimination Final 5 v 10 - Winner progresses to Semi Final and play the loser of 2nd Qualifying Final.

Week 2: 

Loser of 2nd Qualifying Final v Winner of 3rd Elimination Final. Winner progresses to 1st Preliminary Final against winner of 1st Qualifying Final.

Loser of 1st Qualifying Final v Winner of 1st Elimination Final.*

Winner of 2nd Qualifying Final v Winner of 2nd Elimination Final.*

* Highest Ranked winner will go onto host 2nd Preliminary Final.

Week 3:

1st & 2nd Preliminary Finals.

Week 4:

Grand Final.

[Fat Tony 4,397]

I have never really liked the double chance. A final 10 with the first week being 7th vs 10th and 8th vs 9th followed by knock out quarter, semi/preliminary and grand finals makes the most sense to me.

The benefit for finishing top 2 is an unrested opponent and home finals (until the grand final).

[monoccular 16,042]

If Gill and his henchmen at HQ haven't learned from the dog's dinner aka VFL that byes are soul and competition destroying then let them go ahead and introduce a 19th money source team and see the fans desert AFL in even greater numbers than they have already.

NB BYES are garbage, and make the "draw" even more unfair than it is now.

[kev martin 9,050]

Keep the 8, when we get the 19 teams.

Though, I believe the fixture could change to this, even before we have the 19th team.

Every team play each other once.

Then separate into zones: Top 4, then middle 6 and lower 6 or 7, they play within each zone to decide their ladder position. 

Have some matches between the zones in the final one or two home and away games, so as to create possibilities of relegation and promotion into a finals place.

[Sydney_Demon 1,175]

On 7/20/2022 at 8:34 PM, Big Col said:

This is my proposal for how a Final 9 could work should the AFL expand to 19 teams in the future (and want to make more money)

Thanks Big Col for the huge amount of work you've done to come up with this system. I don't think they'll adopt a 9-game finals system for a number of reasons, but my main problem with your proposal is that it is not sufficiently fair to the better-performong teams from the H&A rounds. Apart from the fact that you get to play against nominally-weaker teams there is no advantage, not even home ground advantage, for finishing 1st, 2nd or 3rd. Basically, there are 9 teams going into the Finals with an equal chance to win the Premiership. Taking an extreme case, a side that finishes 9th with an 11-11 record (assuming 22 rounds are still played) on a hot streak tops their group. They then host a Prelim, maybe against a side with a 1-1 Finals record and then go on to win the whole thing...

On 7/20/2022 at 8:59 PM, rpfc said:

Make it a top 10, and have 7 v 10 and 8 v 9 in the bye week before finals.

Solved.

You're welcome.

This is basically what they're currently doing in the NBA, except there they have the ridiculous situation where 10 out of 15 in each Conderence make the Finals, including 'play-ins'. Currently, ignoring home-ground advantage there's a 3 in 16 chance of the Top 4 teams winning the AFL premiership and a 1 in 16 chance for the 5th to 8th teams. This would change to a 1 in 32 chance for Teams 7 to 10. I really don't see this as necessary and would advantage Teams 5-6 too much. Keep the Final 8.

On 7/20/2022 at 10:47 PM, whatwhat say what said:

top 8 with a 'play-in' for 7 v 10 and 8 v 9 looms as the more logical approach

See above. Why more logical?

On 7/21/2022 at 8:24 AM, poita said:

The only justification for a 8 team final series is money. As it is we're already rewarding teams who win barely 50% of their games with finals. A 9 team final series would just be ridiculous.

As an aside, I hope we never see more than 18 teams, and would rather we cull some Victorian teams to get back to 16.

Not the only justification surely. Think about supporters of struggling teams historically (including Melbourne). It keeps the fan's interest in the season going longer, and protects the integrity of the competition because less teams throw in the towel, send players to season-ending surgery, etc. Fundamentally, any Finals system in unfair. The only truly fair system would be one where every team plays each other wwice, home & away, and the top tream is declared the Premiers.

It's fine to argue for culling of Victorian teams, as long as you don't support one of the teams being culled!

On 7/21/2022 at 8:43 AM, george_on_the_outer said:

Forget any final 9, the damage is done to the main fixture with 19 teams. 

Just look at the mess that the VFL fixture is with 21 teams.

 

To be fair, the odd number was brought about by the voluntary withdrawal of Aspley, not the VFL's fault. But I agree there are too many teams. 22 rounds but 4 byes, so you don't even get to play every team once. The AFL will want an even number of teams. 20 teams, and assuming 23 rounds including one bye, would mean an increase from 198 to 220 games which would be a plus from a revenue-raising perspective. Regardless of whether it's 18, 19 or 20 teams, keeping the Final 8 I think would be the way to go.

23 hours ago, MadAsHell said:

Top 10 would work better than top 9. We first had the top 8 with only 15 teams in 94, so no reason we can't do a top 10 with 19.

Stick with a 4 week finals format.

Week 1:

1st Qualifying Final 1 v 2 - Winner gets the week off and hosts a home Preliminary Final. Loser will keep 2nd seed (on opposite side of draw) and host a home Semi Final.

2nd Qualifying Final 3 v 4 - Both sides will play home Semi Finals the following week, but the winner will avoid the side of the draw the winner of the 1st Qualifying Final is on.

1st Elimination Final 7 v 8 - Winner progresses to Semi Final and play the loser of 1st Qualifying.

2nd Elimination Final 6 v 9 - Winner progress to Semi Final and play the winner of 2nd Qualifying Final.

3rd Elimination Final 5 v 10 - Winner progresses to Semi Final and play the loser of 2nd Qualifying Final.

Week 2: 

Loser of 2nd Qualifying Final v Winner of 3rd Elimination Final. Winner progresses to 1st Preliminary Final against winner of 1st Qualifying Final.

Loser of 1st Qualifying Final v Winner of 1st Elimination Final.*

Winner of 2nd Qualifying Final v Winner of 2nd Elimination Final.*

* Highest Ranked winner will go onto host 2nd Preliminary Final.

Week 3:

1st & 2nd Preliminary Finals.

Week 4:

Grand Final.

Well, we had a Top 4 with 12 teams from 1931 to 1971 so I would have thought that was a stronger argument for 8 of 19 than the anomoly of 8 of 15 in 1994. I notice you've chosen the most extreme ratio that applied for 1 year only as your justification. In a typical year having 10 finals teams of 19 in all likelihood would mean the 10th team could have a negative win-loss record!

One thing that stands out for me is your 2nd Qualifying Final. This is basically a dead rubber with the advantage of winning relatively negligible. Also, having a higher-ranked winner in Week 2 progressing to a Prelim means progression is dependent on a result from another game. This was the problem with the McIntyre Finals Sysytem that applied from 1994 to 1999. This system was fairer than the AFL Final 8 System adopted in 2000 but basically unacceptable to the fans because teams didn't always control their own destiny (and too many uncompetitive games).
 

22 hours ago, Fat Tony said:

I have never really liked the double chance. A final 10 with the first week being 7th vs 10th and 8th vs 9th followed by knock out quarter, semi/preliminary and grand finals makes the most sense to me.

The benefit for finishing top 2 is an unrested opponent and home finals (until the grand final).

Why have you never liked double chances? Higher-ranked teams deserve to have significant advantages. Any system where you play a lengthy H&A season and then that gets virtually ignored is inherently unfair. With your proposal a team could finish 10th with a 10-12 or 11-11 record, have an easy game in the 1st round, and then go into a process where all 8 teams have exactly the same mathematical chance of winning, except for home-ground advantage. Forgetting teams 7 to 10 for a moment, all Top 6 teams have the same chance, except for the extremely marginal benefit of being Top 2 and getting to play a team that has warmed up by beating not particularly tough opposition in the 'play-in' round.

Edited July 22, 2022 by Sydney_Demon
Typo

[rpfc 27,431]

Nah, I like what I said.

Case closed.

[Sydney_Demon 1,175]

1 hour ago, rpfc said:

Nah, I like what I said.

Case closed.

I'm happy that you liked what you said, even though I responded with my reasoning and you provided absolutely none for your initial view and no comment on my thoughts. And thank you dor your erudite conclusions like: Solved. You're welcome. Case closed. They're doing so much to convince me of your (well-argumented) position.

[rpfc 27,431]

12 minutes ago, Sydney_Demon said:

I'm happy that you liked what you said, even though I responded with my reasoning and you provided absolutely none for your initial view and no comment on my thoughts. And thank you dor your erudite conclusions like: Solved. You're welcome. Case closed. They're doing so much to convince me of your (well-argumented) position.

Objection.

Sustained.

[Rivers Run Red 182]

"ie of the 3 teams that finished 2^nd in their pools, select the one that finished highest during the H&A season to advance to the PF"

 

So minor premier just has to finish 2nd to get through.

Pool C looks like it would have 2 prelim finalists everytime.

[Sydney_Demon 1,175]

23 minutes ago, Rivers Run Red said:

"ie of the 3 teams that finished 2^nd in their pools, select the one that finished highest during the H&A season to advance to the PF"

 

So minor premier just has to finish 2nd to get through.

Pool C looks like it would have 2 prelim finalists everytime.

I missed this part of the initial proposal.

So as you say the Minor Premier just has to finish 2nd (1 win, 1 loss) to get through as to a Prelim, regardless of the results in the other pools. 2nd team gets through to Prelim with a 1-1 record if the results are split evenly or Pool A is won by 1st team.  3rd or 4th teams get through to Prelim with 1-1 records if Pools A & B are won by 1st & 2nd teams. All other teams need to win both games, and if they do they make a Prelim. So it's similar to our current system in that Top 4 get a double chance (or close to it) with Teams from 5 onwards needing to win every game. Where it's not similar is that the Top 4 don't get rewarded with a week off for winning their 1st Final and progression is partly dependent on results in other matches. This last aspect is what sunk the McIntyre Final 8 System even though it's actually fairer than the current Final 8 System. Fans want their team to be in charge of it's own destiny and have certainty regarding progression post-game.

[Big Col 1,057]

5 hours ago, Sydney_Demon said:

Thanks Big Col for the huge amount of work you've done to come up with this system.

Not really a huge amount of work but thanks for engaging! (I float these sort of things in my head all the time and only occasionally put them in writing when maybe someone is interested)

I'll concede that  the way I described it - by making it sound complicated and confusing - was terrible. 

I think I was trying to come up with a system that was more like a series than a knock-out comp. It's born of years of disappointment as a Dee. So when you finally make the finals you know you'll at least get to see them because (at least) one of their games will be at home. "My team made the finals, I'm buying a ticket" .  "Oops, it's  an away game in Adelaide". 

If you have a final series (rather than award the premiership to the top team) then you have to accept that any team that qualifies has a chance to win while  presumably you still give an advantage to teams that finishes higher in the H&A. 

[eg In the NBA it's knockout with the only advantage being a slightly better home ground advantage based on your seed. (because they're multiple games, all fans get to see them at home at least once. The higher ranked team will host games in 1,2 5 and 7 of a 7 game series.]

What is the appropriate advantage to give to for ladder position? 

Under the proposed BigColFinal9, form tends towards PF with 1 v 4 and 2 v 3.
The current system trends towards 1 v 3 and 2 v 4 for the PF.


 

[Rab D Nesbitt 7,105]

Bring in some of the stronger state league teams and have two divisions of 12. Everyone plays each other twice with a final 5 and promotion and relegation. 

[Diamond_Jim 11,729]

4 hours ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

Bring in some of the stronger state league teams and have two divisions of 12. Everyone plays each other twice with a final 5 and promotion and relegation. 

A twentieth team in China.

Over a billion fans who have come to know and love Aussie Rules thanks to the visionary Kochie.

Mind you the expansion to NZ and India is just over the horizon but then what about the team in Los Angeles

[layzie 28,672]

Time to shut it down!

[Sydney_Demon 1,175]

12 hours ago, Big Col said:

Not really a huge amount of work but thanks for engaging! (I float these sort of things in my head all the time and only occasionally put them in writing when maybe someone is interested)

I'll concede that  the way I described it - by making it sound complicated and confusing - was terrible. 

I think I was trying to come up with a system that was more like a series than a knock-out comp. It's born of years of disappointment as a Dee. So when you finally make the finals you know you'll at least get to see them because (at least) one of their games will be at home. "My team made the finals, I'm buying a ticket" .  "Oops, it's  an away game in Adelaide". 

If you have a final series (rather than award the premiership to the top team) then you have to accept that any team that qualifies has a chance to win while  presumably you still give an advantage to teams that finishes higher in the H&A. 

[eg In the NBA it's knockout with the only advantage being a slightly better home ground advantage based on your seed. (because they're multiple games, all fans get to see them at home at least once. The higher ranked team will host games in 1,2 5 and 7 of a 7 game series.]

What is the appropriate advantage to give to for ladder position? 

Under the proposed BigColFinal9, form tends towards PF with 1 v 4 and 2 v 3.
The current system trends towards 1 v 3 and 2 v 4 for the PF.

Sorry, I don't hate your suggestion. I just think from past systems which re-rank teams and/or have certain teams progressing (or not) based on other results there's a lot of confusion and fans don't understand or accept it. Despite it's flaws the AFL Final 8 System introduced in 2000 is understood and accepted and is not unnecessarily complicated. The Top 4 get a 2nd chance, there's a cross-over ahead of the Prelims, higher-ranked teams get home-ground advantage (except the unfair anomoly of the Grand Final being played at the MCG in non-COVID years). 

Regarding what is the appropriate advantage to allow for ladder position I guess that's a matter for debate. Whether it's 8, 9 or 10 teams in the finals the fairest system would be an evenly-graded chance of winning from 1 downwards but that is impossible to achieve in a 4 or 5-round finals system. The McIntyre Finals systems was actually better than the current system in that regard but was rejected for other reasons. I don't like straight knock-out systems because I personally don't think it provides enough advantage to the top teams. At least the best of 7 format in the NBA means generally the cream will rise to the top rather than just one unexpected result meaning a higher-ranked team is knocked out.

In the current AFL system the obvious break in advantage is 1-4 vs 5-8, with in pure mathematical terms and ignoring home-ground advantage the top 4 having a 3/16 chance and teams 5-8 having a 1/16 chance. Including home-ground advantage these odds would even out but there is still an unfair break IMV betweem teams 4 & 5. I've argued elsewhere that it's actually better to finish 2nd than 1st, with the Premiers being split 7 7 7 out of 22 from teams 1-3 since 2000. But clearly this is influenced by the significance of home-ground advantage which is dependent on which team ends up in which position. Top 2 are equal unless there's has a home-ground advantage for one over the other, 3's as good as 2 if there's no home-ground advantage, 4 is definitely worse than 3.

[Queanbeyan Demon 5,913]

On 7/20/2022 at 8:34 PM, Big Col said:

This is my proposal for how a Final 9 could work should the AFL expand to 19 teams in the future (and want to make more money)

Final 9 Proposal

Main points:

·      Top 9 teams qualify

·      Every team that qualifies plays at least two games, and at least one home and one away game

·      All teams can win the premiership, but the higher your finish the greater your chance to play to play in a preliminary final and the greater the chance that it will be a Home PF

·      Finals series is for 5 weeks. The pre-finals bye is eliminated but each team will receive one bye in the first 3 weeks during the series. To win the premiership you must win the last 2 weeks (PF and GF) and at least one of the other 2 games (ie it is impossible to lose 2 games and win the GF)

System:

Teams that finish in the top 9 are allocated pools based on their H&A ladder position.

Pool A - 1,6,7 

Pool B - 2,5,8

Pool C - 3,4,9

Each team plays 2 games (1xH and 1xA) against the other 2 teams in its pool. 

The teams are then ranked 1^st, 2^nd or 3^rd in their pool.

Percentage is used to separate those teams on equal wins, calculated using only the results from finals games.

The winner of each pool advances to the Preliminary Finals (3) as does the highest H&A ranked team from those teams that finished 2^nd in their finals pool.

(ie of the 3 teams that finished 2^nd in their pools, select the one that finished highest during the H&A season to advance to the PF)

All the teams that finished 1^st in their group are re-ranked for preliminary finals. The highest finishing team in H&A who qualifies for the Preliminary Finals is ranked 1. The second highest is 2 and third is 3. The team that qualifies by virtue of being the highest ranked team to finish second, is re-ranked as 4^th.

Preliminary finals are 1v4 and 2v3

Grand final is the winner of each PF.

The schedule in the Qualifying Rounds and How to avoid dead rubbers 

Each team is ranked 1,2 or 3 within their pools (eg Pool A, team 1 is 1, team 6 is 2 and team 7 is 3) depending on their H&A position. Each pool has the same system with each team playing one home and one away game.

Week 1: 2 v 3 (team 1 has a bye)

Week 2: 3 v 1 (team 2 has a bye) OR 1 v 2 (team 3 has a bye)

Week 3: 1 v 2 (team 3 has a bye) OR 3 v 1 ( team 2 has a bye)

The winner of week 1 advances to week 3, so that will determine which of the two options is played in week 2 and which is played in week 3.

There can be no dead rubber in the final round.

Example, with winning teams in bold.

The teams finish like this at the end of the H&A season:

1 GEE

2 MEL

3 FRE

4 BNE

5 CAR

6 COLL

7 SYD

8 RICH

9 STK

POOL A: Gee, Coll, Syd

POOL B: Mel, Car, Rich

POOL C: Fre, Bne, St K

Week 1:

Coll v Syd

Carl v Rich

Bne vs StK

Byes:  Geel, Melb, Freo

Week 2

Syd vs Geel

Rich vs Melb

Freo vs Bne

Byes: Coll, Carl, St K

Week 3

Geel v Coll 

Melb v Carl

StK vs Freo

Byes: Syd, Rich, Bne

In Pool C, Freo have a solid win over StK and win their group and St Kilda finish 2^nd. But as the 9^th placed team it’s impossible to finish as the best runner up, so they’re eliminated. 

In Pool B, Melb comfortably defeats Carl who finish 2^nd in their group and await the results of other games to see if they can be the highest placed runner-up. Rich, having lost both their games was already eliminated.

In Pool A, all 3 teams finish on 1 win, so the result comes down to the percentage over the three games (2 each). Geel are up by 20 points with seconds to go in the last quarter, but a behind after the siren makes it only a 19 point, win allowing Coll to top the group while  Geel edges Syd out for 2^nd place in their group. Geel qualify as the highest placed runner-up. If Geel had won by 20+ and topped the group, then Carl would have qualified as the highest ranked runner up.  

POOL A WIINER: Coll

POOL B WINNER: Melb

POOL C WINNER: Freo

Best placed runner-up: Geel

Preliminary Finals: 

Mel vs Geel

Freo vs Coll

GF:

Mel vs Coll

Melbourne go on to win by 634 points, after a shock 1^st quarter where they were held to only 11 goals straight.  Weideman returns to the team after 3 years in the reserves and kicks 27 goals while Oliver racks up 132 possessions. Petracca receives his 7^th consecutive Norm Smith Medal. On the down side, Gawn has a disappointing 347 hit outs, while Jackson watches from the sidelines in his Freo scarf regretting life’s decisions.

This is absolutely brilliant work BC. I love it. And there's only one place where this can come unstuck in its socialisation through the broader footy community. A workshop would need to be held on the second floor at Harrison House to explain it to BT, Lingy, Derm, Robbo and Basil Zempilas. That lot, and their likes, are flat out identifying the number '2' on the button panel in the lift, let alone understanding the sophisticated and nuanced approach of your proposal. 

[Rivers Run Red 182]

On 7/22/2022 at 5:10 PM, Sydney_Demon said:

I missed this part of the initial proposal.

So as you say the Minor Premier just has to finish 2nd (1 win, 1 loss) to get through as to a Prelim, regardless of the results in the other pools. 2nd team gets through to Prelim with a 1-1 record if the results are split evenly or Pool A is won by 1st team.  3rd or 4th teams get through to Prelim with 1-1 records if Pools A & B are won by 1st & 2nd teams. All other teams need to win both games, and if they do they make a Prelim. So it's similar to our current system in that Top 4 get a double chance (or close to it) with Teams from 5 onwards needing to win every game. Where it's not similar is that the Top 4 don't get rewarded with a week off for winning their 1st Final and progression is partly dependent on results in other matches. This last aspect is what sunk the McIntyre Final 8 System even though it's actually fairer than the current Final 8 System. Fans want their team to be in charge of it's own destiny and have certainty regarding progression post-game.

The part I like least is the one home, one away round robin. It takes away home ground and home state advantage of finishes.

Not that they are as big as they used to be.