What unpopular AFL opinions do you have? (Part 1 - cont in Part 2)

[Mordecai]

Interested to hear some of the unpopular opinions people have and why.

For me:
1. I like Andrew Demitriou. I believe he has done a good job developing the game's brand. I like his no nonsense attitude in interviews.
2. I believe the games rules should be reviewed and sometimes changed. Players get better, coaches develop new tactics and strategies and so the game changes. Having a good institution to review the state of the game as a spectacle is healthy.
3.Lance Franklin isn't in the top few players in the league. That's not to say he couldn't become the very best player in the AFL. He misses too many easy goals. Anyone who has played sport knows that a failure to reward effort is deflating. He needs to become more accurate. This goes for all forwards - Kurt Tippett, Nick Riewoldt and our Lindsay Thomas of course.

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This is Part 1 of this thread.

Part 2 can be found here:
https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/what-unpopular-afl-opinions-do-you-have-part-2.1194685/

 

[Williamc99]

Lance Franklin is a little overrated. Joel Selwood is overrated. Chris Judd is a little overrated (he came to the Blues and a lot of people thought he'd change things and they've done stuff all since).

 

[jerry springer]

1. Gary Ablett is a great player,but there is no doubt in my mind he pads his stats with his dinky handball give and goes

2. Johnathon Brown should play for half pay for his next contract. His output in the last few years has been dismal whilst on megabucks. This with other factors included have caused good players to leave the brisbane lions at a time when they need to be competitive.Everybody seems to just blame the fev trade.

3. Im quite happy for Collingwood to let another team play on ANZAC day.Im personally just sick of hearing the bitching for the last decade. Give it to a lower-drawing team(s) and let them run with it

4. The Brisbane - Gold coast Q-clash 1 last year was rigged. Go back and watch it and try and tell me that that it wasn't fixed.I have never seen a team in a VFL/AFL game systematically helped across the line by the umpires like Gold coast were on that night

Fire away.....

 

[LosBeatles]

The dockers would be better off without Pavlich. I know he kicked 6 last week and won the game but he does that once a year, the other 21 games he brings the whole playing group down. He has been the constant factor in all the dockers years of failure.

 

[Black Diamond]

1. I like Ross Lyon is his game plan. I really enjoyed watching St Kilda under his charge and the same goes for Fremantle.

2. I generally enjoy watching the low scoring dog fights more than free flowing, high scoring games.

3. Zac Dawson is a serviceable defender.

 

[Lazix]

History/Tradition is overrated.

i.e. Essendon, get a real damn clash guernsey. Nothing bad will happen, your limbs won't fall off and the sun will continue to rise I promise.

 

[Wallaby]

1. Umpires are not biased. It's interpretation. Sometimes you have a bad run, like a series of bad bounces.
2. Fans don't know the rules accurately.
3. Interchange has been a net negative for the game, and should be scrapped (subs only).
4. Expansion has NOT been good for the fans experience of the game.
5. The Grand final should NOT be played at the MCG automatically - there should be some way of a team 'earning' a home ground advantage.

 

[HotPiesWithSauce]

I don't like the players singing the team song after winning a game. I never enjoyed it when I played, seems rather camp, like some shitty musical where everyone randomly bursts into song and noone seems to think that it's peculiar.

 

[Zeke]

Nick Riewoldt is a very poor AFL captain.

 

[wikipediaAFLproject]

1. Too many Victorian teams. Some need to go.

2. Expansion is good for the game. Looking at history it has improved football standards dramatically.

3. Demetriuou is doing a great job. Yes there are some negatives, but overall great.

4. Interchange needs to go. Game would become even more tactical with no interchange...ie resting players in defence. Putting more attacking players on at certain times.

5. We need to do much more to grow the game overseas. It really is the greatest sport in the world ... just not the easiest to understand or take up.

 

[Honeyboy Wilson]

I think Jack Watts will be a better player than Nic Naitanui and Michael Hurley and his output so far this year has been better than both.

 

[vast]

There have been games played in the afl where the result was purposely influenced by the umpires. I cannot prove this obviously but I still believe it has happened. It may have been at the direction of the afl as well.

 

[He_Beast]

Nic Naitanui is the best player of all time

 

[the_interloper]

I like Demetriou too, he'd have to be close to our best commissioner ever surely.

I think Nick Maxwell is an overrated hack, worst captain in the AFL and plays a position that would be easy for any average VFL player to get a kick. Waitaminute, that's a popular view!

 

[Roobs321]

1. Ross Lyon is good for our game, his tactical innovations have impacted on the game's progression and he remains an engagingly interesting personality. St Kilda circa '09 were just absorbing to watch, it was almost alien at the time from Rnd 1 on.

2. Demetriou has been fantastic for our game, and his legacy will be enormous

3. The Sydney Swans have ultimately been a remarkable success story, and will go down as the AFL era's greatest ever achievement. The club doesnt quite get the respect it deserves. Adelaide's historical dominance over Sydney is also the most peculiar and overlooked H2H in the game.

4. The concept of the 'Big 4' is the most laughably overrated and nostalgic issue in the AFL, and keeps the 'Australian' competition victorian-centric

5. Always held the opinion that GWS would be a much bigger success than Gold Coast

6. Netball is one of the better comparisons with our game, yet is often used as some type of misogynist sledge. The Aus vs NZ rivalry in netball trumps most of our comp's rivalries with ease.

7. Bringing back State of Origin is a horrible idea, our AFL season competition and it's clubs is what makes the code so successful. It has made the NRL comp an afterthought, NRL SoO is a good thing for us, not a trump card to worry about, plus the NRL SoO format is better than we can produce.

8. Further expansion should be left alone until about 2030 at the earliest.

9. Nick Naitanui is clearly the premier ruckman in the AFL.

 

[Quinz]

I like the quirks of fixture inequalities.

 

[mollyfud]

1) Clubs on the downward march with star players should trade these stars while they still have draft pick value and those draft picks can fuel the next wave of growth in the list. Examples: Lloyd & Lucas at Essendon, Jono Brown from Brisbane, etc

2) Tanking makes sense for clubs and shouldn't be demonised. Throwing matches though is match fixing and should be punished.
3) Only way Melbourne have a bad year is if they finish in the bottom six but not dead last! Therefore only dumb thing Melbourne can do is to win!
(Now a biased one)
4) Ryan Schoenmakers will be an All Australian defender sometime in the next 4 years!
(Okay, another biased one)
5) If Luke Darcy wasn't on the All-Australian panel last year, Grant Birchall would have been AA instead of Robert Murphy!

 

[Papa G]

I don't like the players singing the team song after winning a game. I never enjoyed it when I played, seems rather camp, like some shitty musical where everyone randomly bursts into song and noone seems to think that it's peculiar.

I so agree with this. A rousing come from behind win or from a team that hasn't won in ages where there is genuine emotion I can handle, but the rest of the time it is lame.

 

[ausbacker]

I don't like the players singing the team song after winning a game. I never enjoyed it when I played, seems rather camp, like some shitty musical where everyone randomly bursts into song and noone seems to think that it's peculiar.

I so agree with this. A rousing come from behind win or from a team that hasn't won in ages where there is genuine emotion I can handle, but the rest of the time it is lame.

You two are aware that you can switch off the broadcast at the time the club song is about to be sung?

I mute Foxtel every time Rhonda and her beautiful brake foot airs.

 

[Furuncle]

Following AFL football is a waste of time. There are better things to do in life. Think of all time you spend travelling to and from games, standing in queues before the game and at half time, watching overpaid gorillas chase a piece of leather, hurling abuse at the umpires, cursing the opposition guns, cursing your own team's duds, shuffling slowly out of the ground after the final siren, listening to shitty talkback radio, listening to shitty radio commercials, watching godawful TV panel shows, reading insipid newspaper articles, pre-season fluff pieces about Jobe & Timmy Watson, listening to Channel 7's crappy commentary, Bruce and Dennis tossing each other off and swearing at your TV screen like a crazy man, daydreaming of your team winning the Grand Final, posting mindless crap on Big Footy, arguing with some imbecile over who was better: Tredrea or Riewoldt? Hird or Buckley? .... and for what? Was your life improved? Did it help you achieve your goals? Did you wake up and find yourself living in a Toorak mansion with a beautiful wife and $10,000,000 in your bank account? All it really did was temporarily distract you from the miserable reality that your life sucks.

AFL football is like heroin: it's heavy users suffer through long periods of drawn-out anticipation and irritation, the occasional fleeting high, interspersed with a zombified, stupefied state of existence, their body and mind slowly rotting as the years tick by, the world passing them by.

Enjoy your AFL, schmucks. Here's some highlights of Peter Daicos brought to you by McDonalds cheeseburgers and Carlton United Breweries.

 

[Dont be a lemon]

2. Expansion is good for the game. Looking at history it has improved football standards dramatically.

That's only 'unpopular' if you think the nuffies of BigFooty are the majority.

 

[GreatBradScott]

That the GC and GWS is a horrendous idea; and we might've bitten off more than we can chew.

Demetriou also gets a more than favorable outcome in my books.

 

[bluemarq]

That's only 'unpopular' if you think the nuffies of BigFooty are the majority.

Yes, just look at the crowds GWS and GC are drawing....tens upon tens of thousands of.....um.

 

[Effes]

The bounce by the umpires should be abolished.

Here is a chance to make sure each ruckman gets a fair crack at it.............for some illogical reason the AFL have decided that each ruckman SHOULDN'T get a fair crack at winning the hitout.

 

[jo172]

The Sydney/West Coast Grand Finals were two of the better in recent memory