Mega Thread VICBias - Genuine Discussion Part 2

[sr36]

If I felt as strongly as you did about being able to attend, I would. That’s me though.

I don't feel strongly about attending. I'm just pointing out something I think is an unfair system. You've got triggered because you're on the list to become a beneficiary of that unfairness. I think good luck to you personally, but I also think it's a system that should be scrapped.

 

[Bay53]

It has no practical benefit to someone on the other side of the country, it's a privilege for Victorian fans. I might as well buy a gold pass to Wembley Stadium.

If you like attending events at Wembley stadium, go for it.

I am sure Club Wembley has members who don’t live in London.

 

[doppleganger]

If you like attending events at Wembley stadium, go for it.

I am sure Club Wembley has members who don’t live in London.

The MCC is the stadium membership, the equivalent of your club Wembley.

AFL membership equivalent would be if the English Football League introduced a special limited supply EFL membership. The EFL membership granting up to 50 games *subject to capacity, across all grounds in London only.

 

[Senor M]

It's not about punishing you. The AFL just shouldn't have an unfair system that allocates more tickets to the Vic fans of the participating club than the non-Vic fans.

It's simple to change. Split the AFL members section in half - each half balloted amongst AFL members who have nominated the competing clubs and leftovers from each half go to that club's members. Done. Fair. Without even need to just get rid of AFL Members - which would be just as simple.

Why would the AFL remove a membership category that is made up largely of their most loyal supporter base?

AFL members are the fans attending 2-3 games a weeknd, every weekend. While the AFL continues to have 3-4 games in Melbourne every weekend, they are reliant on AFL members attending games to keep crowd averages up

 

[Bay53]

The MCC is the stadium membership, the equivalent of your club Wembley.

AFL membership equivalent would be if the English Football League introduced a special limited supply EFL membership. The EFL membership granting up to 50 games *subject to capacity, across all grounds in London only.

The point is whatever membership is available at any ground in the world, you are welcome to apply for.

If that is a membership that suits you, great, if it does not then don't apply.

But that shouldn't prevent others from enjoying it.

 

[doppleganger]

The point is whatever membership is available at any ground in the world, you are welcome to apply for.

Don't disagree, the MCC is the stadium membership for the MCG.

Anybody who wants to apply for it can go for it.

If that is a membership that suits you, great, if it does not then don't apply.

But that shouldn't prevent others from enjoying it.

AFL membership isn't a stadium membership, although it was originally meant to be as it was a VFL Park membership.

It has morphed into a league membership that competes directly with club memberships in Melbourne. But offers no real value outside of Melbourne.

Hence you have the numerous Essendon fans who decided to ditch their direct club membership in favour of the AFL membership, due to it offering greater value.

But they ignore that for fans from WA and SA, AFL membership doesn't offer any real value at all, so they were never really afforded the same "choice" back 20-30 years ago.

So come GF day, it is an obvious imbalance in the national competition that the AFL still gives non competing AFL members priority over competing club support members.

 

[RonnieRaven]

Waiting for fines and suspensions for conduct unbecoming at cats mad Monday like what happened at the giants.

 

[Freddy Swift]

Waiting for fines and suspensions for conduct unbecoming at cats mad Monday like what happened at the giants.

It’s Geelong Ronnie, don’t hold your breath.

 

[chaosball32]

It’s more of an east coast bias nowadays. One premiership (by a single kick) in the past 20 seasons for the four WA/SA clubs combined would indicate this.

The AFL’s prioritisation of VFL traditionalism and their desperation of getting a foothold in rugba heartland will always trump the best interests of the red-head stepchildren west of Geelong. Limiting access to academies is a start, albeit years too late when the damage has already been done.

Not to mention the opening round fiasco, which is a dumb premise on its lonesome, and now the third consecutive year WA/SA teams will not be involved, meaning a third consecutive year of not only having to wait an extra week to watch their teams play, but getting one less bye throughout the course of the season. It’s a blatant middle finger.

Unfortunately those at AFL house know that WA and SA supporters will show up and support their teams no matter what so they will continue to neglect them. Hoping the Perth Bears inception in the NRL in the coming years can put some much needed pressure on the AFL.

 

[Senor M]

It’s more of an east coast bias nowadays. One premiership (by a single kick) in the past 20 seasons for the four WA/SA clubs combined would indicate this.

The AFL’s prioritisation of VFL traditionalism and their desperation of getting a foothold in rugba heartland will always trump the best interests of the red-head stepchildren west of Geelong. Limiting access to academies is a start, albeit years too late when the damage has already been done.

Not to mention the opening round fiasco, which is a dumb premise on its lonesome, and now the third consecutive year WA/SA teams will not be involved, meaning a third consecutive year of not only having to wait an extra week to watch their teams play, but getting one less bye throughout the course of the season. It’s a blatant middle finger.

Unfortunately those at AFL house know that WA and SA supporters will show up and support their teams no matter what so they will continue to neglect them. Hoping the Perth Bears inception in the NRL in the coming years can put some much needed pressure on the AFL.

It's not that AFL's fault that all four of the WA/SA clubs have choked on the big stage in the past 20 years; while Essendon hasn't even won a final in that time.

 

[go_the_dockers]

It's not that AFL's fault that all four of the WA/SA clubs have choked on the big stage in the past 20 years; while Essendon hasn't even won a final in that time.

Yeah, it not like a home GF, Father son, Accademies, free agency and marquee time slots all favour other clubs.

Give us 4 or 5 A graders for either nothing, or 10 3rd rounders and you may see a different result come finals.

 

[chaosball32]

It's not that AFL's fault that all four of the WA/SA clubs have choked on the big stage in the past 20 years; while Essendon hasn't even won a final in that time.

The doping saga, hotshotting of coaches and employing Dodoro for 25 years was all Essendon’s own doing. It’s more of an indictment on Essendon’s repeated mismanagement that despite the advantages they’re afforded they’ve still been poo for north of 2 decades.

If you ignore the countless inherent biases then yeah it’s easy to dismiss them as four teams somehow collectively and repeatedly choking for 20 years, but if you genuinely think this league is played on a level playing field I have a bridge with your name on it. My club has underperformed in their own right but it doesn’t change the fact.

 

[Senor M]

Yeah, it not like a home GF, Father son, Accademies, free agency and marquee time slots all favour other clubs.

Give us 4 or 5 A graders for either nothing, or 10 3rd rounders and you may see a different result come finals.

Not sure how any of those excuses apply to Freo choking in the 2013 Grand Final.

Home Grand Final

• Hawthorn played 6 home games @ the MCG during the 2013 H&A season.
• How many home games did Freo play @ Subiaco that year (HINT: it was more than 6)

Father Son
-- Hawthorn didn't have any father-sons in the squad at that stage

Free Agents (had only started the season before)

• Hawthorn - Jonathan Simpkin ( A delisted free agent)
• Fremantle - Danyle Pearce ( highly rated at Port)

"Marquee time slots"
-- not sure what time of day or week impacts your ability to win games of football; but if you're going to complain about it, explain to me how to make Thursday night football work in Perth when WA fans complain the games starts too early to attend.

 

[Senor M]

The doping saga, hotshotting of coaches and employing Dodoro for 25 years was all Essendon’s own doing. It’s more of an indictment on Essendon’s repeated mismanagement that despite the advantages they’re afforded they’ve still been poo for north of 2 decades.

If you ignore the countless inherent biases then yeah it’s easy to dismiss them as four teams somehow collectively and repeatedly choking for 20 years, but if you genuinely think this league is played on a level playing field I have a bridge with your name on it. My club has underperformed in their own right but it doesn’t change the fact.

I agree with you 100% that bias exist in the AFL; but that is the league that our respective clubs play in.

However, blaming clubs lack of success on the bias is a sook forth sake of having a sook.

As I mentioned earlier-- all four of the clubs that the person I responded to was claiming was biased against have ALL made Grand Finals in the past 20 years.

All of the clubs have failed on Grand Final day on at least one occasion.

Complaints about father sons, academies, fixtures, etc. make sense if your clubs were never making finals--- but suggesting that these disadvantages only impact clubs on Grand Final Day is ludicrous.

 

[sr36]

I agree with you 100% that bias exist in the AFL; but that is the league that our respective clubs play in.

However, blaming clubs lack of success on the bias is a sook forth sake of having a sook.

As I mentioned earlier-- all four of the clubs that the person I responded to was claiming was biased against have ALL made Grand Finals in the past 20 years.

All of the clubs have failed on Grand Final day on at least one occasion.

Complaints about father sons, academies, fixtures, etc. make sense if your clubs were never making finals--- but suggesting that these disadvantages only impact clubs on Grand Final Day is ludicrous.

In the case of Adelaide teams, extra travel, home and away games at the G, the mcg grand final, blockbuster games, etc... hits them really hard when they're playing qualifying and semi finals at Adelaide Oval.

 

[chaosball32]

I agree with you 100% that bias exist in the AFL; but that is the league that our respective clubs play in.

However, blaming clubs lack of success on the bias is a sook forth sake of having a sook.

As I mentioned earlier-- all four of the clubs that the person I responded to was claiming was biased against have ALL made Grand Finals in the past 20 years.

All of the clubs have failed on Grand Final day on at least one occasion.

Complaints about father sons, academies, fixtures, etc. make sense if your clubs were never making finals--- but suggesting that these disadvantages only impact clubs on Grand Final Day is ludicrous.

Freo have only made finals twice in the past decade and Adelaide went 8 years without finals until this year. West Coast and Port look set for extended periods in the wilderness. It’s harder to rebuild when you aren’t situated in the Melbourne bubble, or have the assistance of academies, or have Vic lifers in Petracca, Oliver and Curnow willing to pack their bags and move west, etc.

Between the four clubs they’ve only made Grand Finals 5 times since 2007. Geelong (7), Sydney (5) and Hawthorn (5) alone have all featured as many times if not more. Higher seeded West Coast and Adelaide have had to play lower seeded MCG tenants three times (2015, 2017 and 2018). On two of those occasions it resulted in the lower seed winning comfortably and if not for a fluky Dom Sheed goal it would have been 0-3.

That’s not to say there hasn’t been an element of choking or self-inflicted wounds, but there is much less room for error. If Freo doesn’t win a flag in the next few years we’ve likely blown our chance for the next decade. The chances of us pulling a Collingwood or a Melbourne and going from 17th to a flag in 2 years is highly unlikely.

 

[SC_Power]

How does everyone see the wildcard round in terms of fairness?

I can’t see a non Vic team ever making a run from 9-10th with all away games.
I can’t see a Vic team doing it to be honest, hate the idea, but having the opportunity of maybe traveling only once if the stars align, certainly could give it a shot.

 

[Senor M]

Between the four clubs they’ve only made Grand Finals 5 times since 2007. Geelong (7), Sydney (5) and Hawthorn (5) alone have all featured as many times if not more.

Essendon (0), Carlton (0), North Melbourne (0) & Melbourne (1) have made a collective one Grand Final since 2007. Adelaide (1), Port Adelaide (1), Fremantle (1) and West Coast (2) alone have all featured as many times, if not more.

 

[chaosball32]

Essendon (0), Carlton (0), North Melbourne (0) & Melbourne (1) have made a collective one Grand Final since 2007. Adelaide (1), Port Adelaide (1), Fremantle (1) and West Coast (2) alone have all featured as many times, if not more.

I’ve already explained Essendon’s repeated mismanagement, Carlton’s cap breach and subsequent draft restrictions set them back many years, ditto Melbourne and their tanking saga, and North Melbourne killed their culture by discarding multiple long-serving veterans at once and have butchered multiple high end picks and priority picks since.

All those clubs you named you can pinpoint self-inflicted **** ups that stuffed them for years if not decades.

Are you going to address the rest of my comment or are you only going to cherry-pick?

 

[Senor M]

I’ve already explained Essendon’s repeated mismanagement, Carlton’s cap breach and subsequent draft restrictions set them back many years, ditto Melbourne and their tanking saga,

All those clubs you named you can pinpoint self-inflicted **** ups that stuffed them for years if not decades.

But didn't you say only earlier that they had a massive advantage?

Freo have only made finals twice in the past decade and Adelaide went 8 years without finals until this year. West Coast and Port look set for extended periods in the wilderness. It’s harder to rebuild when you aren’t situated in the Melbourne bubble, or have the assistance of academies, or have Vic lifers in Petracca, Oliver and Curnow willing to pack their bags and move west, etc.

Out of curiosity-- how many of those "Vic lifers" are playing for a Victorian club next season, mate?

Are you going to address the rest of my comment or are you only going to cherry-pick?

Wouldn't want to be cherry-picking information to present a biased argument, would we?

Between the four clubs they’ve only made Grand Finals 5 times since 2007. Geelong (7), Sydney (5) and Hawthorn (5) alone have all featured as many times if not more.

 

[sr36]

How does everyone see the wildcard round in terms of fairness?

I can’t see a non Vic team ever making a run from 9-10th with all away games.
I can’t see a Vic team doing it to be honest, hate the idea, but having the opportunity of maybe traveling only once if the stars align, certainly could give it a shot.

Don't like it. As well as 9 and 10 being little chance of winning it, the change basically takes out 7 and 8 and makes it incredibly unlikely that they can win the thing either.

 

[chaosball32]

But didn't you say only earlier that they had a massive advantage?



Out of curiosity-- how many of those "Vic lifers" are playing for a Victorian club next season, mate?




Wouldn't want to be cherry-picking information to present a biased argument, would we?

I’m not sure if you are deliberately missing the point of my arguments so I have to re-explain and then we end up going around in circles.

The Vic lifers comment is referring to the fact those players were born and raised in Victoria, came up through the Victorian system, played for Victorian clubs their entire careers to date and were only willing to move an hour flight up north. You think Petracca, Oliver, Curnow, etc ever would have entertained a move to Perth? Might as well be Mars to them.

Geelong, Sydney and Hawthorn making 17 Grand Finals in the past 20 years compared to the entire states of WA and SA only making 5 (and only winning one, by 5 points no less) is not cherry picking, it’s pretty relevant to the discussion and hard to ignore.

My entire point is WA and SA clubs have much less room for error compared to eastern coast clubs. We get a finite window and if we don’t capitalise we fall back into obscurity for an extended period. We can’t do a Geelong or a Collingwood and do a mini re-wiring and go again. We can’t get bargain top 10 picks through our academies like the rugby states. If you look at Freo’s build it as been very deliberate and as such has seen us been largely a non-entity for the past decade, and we’ll likely be a non-entity for another decade if we don’t capitalise in the next few years.

I’m confused as to what your stance is. You admitted there is a bias, yet you seem to be doing everything you can to disregard and ignore said biases.

 

[sr36]

I’m not sure if you are deliberately missing the point of my arguments so I have to re-explain and then we end up going around in circles.

The Vic lifers comment is referring to the fact those players were born and raised in Victoria, came up through the Victorian system, played for Victorian clubs their entire careers to date and were only willing to move an hour flight up north. You think Petracca, Oliver, Curnow, etc ever would have entertained a move to Perth? Might as well be Mars to them.

The point you're missing is that WA produces the highest ratio of players compared to clubs, so should end up with the most WA-lifers/returnees. Hence Freo having had a steady stream of high profile returning recruits, despite not having been successful - which tends to be what you need to be to poach players if you're from Vic.

Vic clubs can get a longer window at the top for this reason, but they also get a longer window down the bottom once they fall, as why would you chose to move to a bottom Vic team and if you're already at one - why stay? They have to spend heaps more to recruit and retain players. It creates a wide gap in the Vic market and is why both flags and spoons have disproportionately gone to Vic.

Northern States are the place to be - with the academy impact only really begginning to kick in, more wanting out of the footy nuts bubbles and lifestyle becoming highefr priority - you'll see flags and lots of finals heading that way - with very few low finishes.

 

[chaosball32]

The point you're missing is that WA produces the highest ratio of players compared to clubs, so should end up with the most WA-lifers/returnees. Hence Freo having had a steady stream of high profile returning recruits, despite not having been successful - which tends to be what you need to be to poach players if you're from Vic.

Vic clubs can get a longer window at the top for this reason, but they also get a longer window down the bottom once they fall, as why would you chose to move to a bottom Vic team and if you're already at one - why stay? They have to spend heaps more to recruit and retain players. It creates a wide gap in the Vic market and is why both flags and spoons have disproportionately gone to Vic.

Northern States are the place to be - with the academy impact only really begginning to kick in, more wanting out of the footy nuts bubbles and lifestyle becoming highefr priority - you'll see flags and lots of finals heading that way - with very few low finishes.

Freo have had a number of WA-native players leave over the last few years (Hogan, B.Hill, Acres, Lobb, Henry, Logue, Hamling just off the top of my head). Weirdly our success rate of retaining Victorians has been much better. And just in the past year alone we failed to woo Warner or Kozzy.

WA’s player development has gone down the toilet in recent years too, only one WA player (Farrow) in the top 30 of Twomey’s recent phantom draft. Compare that to 14 players from Vic and 6 players from QLD/NSW (all of whom linked to academies). Players like Whan (Freo NGA) and Rodriguez who were previously touted as first round potential have slid massively over the past 12 months.

With a potential QLD dynasty on the horizon it’s looking really grim.

 

[Senor M]

Geelong, Sydney and Hawthorn making 17 Grand Finals in the past 20 years compared to the entire states of WA and SA only making 5 (and only winning one, by 5 points no less) is not cherry picking, it’s pretty relevant to the discussion and hard to ignore.

Picking the most successful three clubs in the past 20 years to compare to the result of four clubs is deliberately cherry picking.

The same way comparing Carlton, Essendon, North Melbourne & Melbourne only making a combined 1 Grand Final across the same time period.

Instead of making it all about "VicBias" it is worth noting that all four of the WA/SA clubs have made bad decisions along the way that have led to their own struggles.

The Eagles went All-in on Tim Kelly, only for the club to miss out on multiple first round picks during the start of their rebuild. Combine that with repeated long term injuries, bad trading and actively pushing out their captain, no wonder they are in a bad way.

The Crows are the homophobic club that is still living in the aftermath of Collective Minds.

Port stuck with Hinkley for way too long, consistently have a decent side that chokes on the big stage.

It's not "VicBias" it's poor club management, no different than Essendon, Carlton, North & Melbourne