It's officially the off season, so time for an off season thread!
So, in the last 15 years, 7 clubs have won flags. Those same 7 clubs have also been runners up 9 times in the last 7 years. It wouldn't be surprising if one of those 7 clubs won again next year, with Hawthorn, West Coast, Sydney and possibly Geelong aiming for the top 4 again.
Now, based on these figures it's pretty hard to say that the current equalisation methods employed by the AFL (that being the draft and the salary cap) aren't doing a very good job.
I think everyone agrees that a competition which has a healthy rotation of sides competing is much more enjoyable (unless of course your side is at the top). So what changes can be implemented to try and achieve this? Or is everything fine and once we have a few years of uninterrupted drafts we'll be okay?
I think we need to look at the structure of the draft. I don't think the way it works at the moment is ideal for the way Australian Football is played. There's probably no other team sport where the performance of one individual player is so relatively small. And yet the idea of the draft is that you can rebuild by getting to pick one player per round.
I think we should look at a draft that increases the amount of picks per round for the lower ranked side. Something like last place gets picks 1&10, second last gets 2&12, etc. Or something like that. Speed up the process of rebuilding through the draft.
So, in the last 15 years, 7 clubs have won flags. Those same 7 clubs have also been runners up 9 times in the last 7 years. It wouldn't be surprising if one of those 7 clubs won again next year, with Hawthorn, West Coast, Sydney and possibly Geelong aiming for the top 4 again.
Now, based on these figures it's pretty hard to say that the current equalisation methods employed by the AFL (that being the draft and the salary cap) aren't doing a very good job.
I think everyone agrees that a competition which has a healthy rotation of sides competing is much more enjoyable (unless of course your side is at the top). So what changes can be implemented to try and achieve this? Or is everything fine and once we have a few years of uninterrupted drafts we'll be okay?
I think we need to look at the structure of the draft. I don't think the way it works at the moment is ideal for the way Australian Football is played. There's probably no other team sport where the performance of one individual player is so relatively small. And yet the idea of the draft is that you can rebuild by getting to pick one player per round.
I think we should look at a draft that increases the amount of picks per round for the lower ranked side. Something like last place gets picks 1&10, second last gets 2&12, etc. Or something like that. Speed up the process of rebuilding through the draft.