Ryan Daniels: Four ways the coronavirus shutdown could change the AFL
Ryan DanielsThe West Australian
Friday, 27 March 2020 3:15PM
Of all the things Gillon McLachlan said these past two weeks, one thing stuck with me most of all.
“Football will find a way.” Like life. And, according to Jurassic Park, dinosaurs.
I filtered two things from this statement.
1. Jeff Goldblum will play the role of Gill in the inevitable Netflix Series — AFL Corona: From Where you Never Wanted to Be.
2. He’s right.
Football has a knack of not only overcoming shock and instability — but thriving in its wake.
If we put aside the dramatic and, in some ways, catastrophic impact this whole Covid-19 thing is having on our society, and just focus on footy for a minute, I see short term pain but long-term opportunity.
Footy has kind of gotten away from itself in recent years.
No one really wanted a team in Sydney’s Greater West — but the AFL put one there anyway.
Stephen Coniglio and team mates celebrate winning the round 1 AFL match between the Greater Western Sydney Giants and the Geelong Cats. Credit: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images
The people of Gold Coast were happy with overworked tans, over-revved engines and over-tattooed necks. They didn’t need the Suns — but they got them anyway.
AFLW? Sure, we need it. It’s fantastic. But the over-expansion from 8, to 10 to 14 teams in the space of three years was misguided and rushed. Not to mention expensive.
Don’t even get me started on the parade of confusion and desperation that was AFL X — the sporting equivalent of a post-hook-up walk of shame through Northbridge on a Sunday morning.
Hundreds of millions of dollars has been spent pushing up a few new avenues of potential, when the game at grassroots and even state level was on life support.
What the league has been gifted here — through sheer coincidence — is a chance to hit reset.
Much like the rest of us who are taking this time to exercise more, talk to our family, watch that doco we’ve been hanging for or read that book we’ve been desperate to open for months — the AFL should be focusing on self-improvement — and that starts with knowing when not to splice T-Rex DNA with a velociraptor’s.
Here are four things the AFL should focus on after its eventual return.
The Draft Age
Let’s assume there’s no more footy in 2020. I know, it sucks. But it’s looking more and more likely.
No footy means no results, which means no ladder — and that’s where a draft would get confusing. What are we supposed to do? Hand Gold Coast the number one pick again? Do a lottery? And what about all the picks that have been traded already? No.
We kill two birds with one stone.
For a while now the AFL has been keen to shift the draft eligibility age by a year. They want 19-year-old men entering the system, not 18-year-old boys. If you don’t think one year makes much difference — let me tell you, it does. Us blokes mature slow. One year is like seven years for a girl the same age.
Under 18 footy, TAC Cup, WAFL colts — they’ve all been cancelled or postponed, so where are these kids going to get their much-needed development? They can’t.
Lake Grace Junior Football Club players celebrate a second Brownlow Medal win for one of their former members, Nathan Fyfe. Credit: Nic Ellis/The West Australian, Nic Ellis
So, let’s hit pause.
Let’s scrap the 2020 draft, shift the age cut-off to 19, and push this year’s crop to the 2021 draft.
Going forward every teenager entering the league gets another year of development — and they get a year in the local leagues which can only strengthen the WAFL, VFL and SANFL.
And they get cleaner socks.
Shorter games
I hated the idea of shorter games. Records would be compromised. Statistics would be lower — devastating news for a fantasy football savant such as myself — and less football had to be a bad thing, right?
Wrong.
The 16-minute quarters worked. Players seemed more desperate to move the ball, we had closer games, and we didn’t have to commit three hours of our weekend to each fixture.
Maybe it’s 17 minutes — or 18 — but we don’t need to go back to 20.
Go Slow
No more Tassie expansion talk. As much as we’d love to see it, now is not the time. It may never be the time.
AFLW? We may seriously have to consider a reduction in teams for the next few years. The AFL is in crisis. They’ve had to mortgage Marvel Stadium. This is real.
We can’t scrap the AFLW all together — it has come too far, and too many young girls have found new heroes. The quality has risen dramatically — sorry haters. We can’t take that way.
But for its very chance at survival — let alone commercial success — we have to be realistic.
Overexpansion was fine when things were flush. They’re not anymore, and the AFLW is not yet near a place where it can finance its own operation.
AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan speaks to the media during an AFL press conference at AFL House. Credit: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images
These teams wouldn’t become extinct — they’d just go into hibernation.
Meanwhile, AFL footy department spending has grown faster than your data usage during lockdown.
The coach’s box on match-day is packed with 15 or more people in polo shirts. The bench is just as full. The rooms are stuffed with staffers — physios, sports scientists, marketing gurus, welfare managers, development coaches and many more. Corona has forced the hand of clubs, it’s time to cut back.
The love of the Game
For the foreseeable future the league needs to focus on its core product.
No gimmicks. No expansion. No catering for a new market with some kind of bastardised netball/touch-footy/Aussie-Rules hybrid with an X on it, you know, cause the letter X is cool.
No.
We already love the game. We love the stars, the prodigies, the next wave coming through — the characters, like Dusty and Ross and Toby and all the other one-name icons.
Play great footy, keep it simple, embrace the natural evolution of our great game and, above all, don’t take fans for granted.
Dustin Martin of the Tigers in action during the 2020 AFL Round 01 match between the Richmond Tigers and the Carlton Blues. Credit: Dylan Burns/AFL Photos/via Getty Images
If this never-ending Corona nightmare has taught us anything, its that footy without fans is not the same.
That hit me the other day when watching the Crows take on the Swans. Tom Papley kicked a fantastic goal, and in his usual cheeky way ran toward the parochial Adelaide crowd to feed off their disapproval. But they weren’t there. Papley almost seemed shocked, and he was definitely disappointed.
This is our game — your game. We love it because it just is.
Now Gill, please, when you eventually come back — let’s keep it that way.
Ryan DanielsThe West Australian
Friday, 27 March 2020 3:15PM
Of all the things Gillon McLachlan said these past two weeks, one thing stuck with me most of all.
“Football will find a way.” Like life. And, according to Jurassic Park, dinosaurs.
I filtered two things from this statement.
1. Jeff Goldblum will play the role of Gill in the inevitable Netflix Series — AFL Corona: From Where you Never Wanted to Be.
2. He’s right.
Football has a knack of not only overcoming shock and instability — but thriving in its wake.
If we put aside the dramatic and, in some ways, catastrophic impact this whole Covid-19 thing is having on our society, and just focus on footy for a minute, I see short term pain but long-term opportunity.
Footy has kind of gotten away from itself in recent years.
No one really wanted a team in Sydney’s Greater West — but the AFL put one there anyway.
The people of Gold Coast were happy with overworked tans, over-revved engines and over-tattooed necks. They didn’t need the Suns — but they got them anyway.
AFLW? Sure, we need it. It’s fantastic. But the over-expansion from 8, to 10 to 14 teams in the space of three years was misguided and rushed. Not to mention expensive.
Don’t even get me started on the parade of confusion and desperation that was AFL X — the sporting equivalent of a post-hook-up walk of shame through Northbridge on a Sunday morning.
Hundreds of millions of dollars has been spent pushing up a few new avenues of potential, when the game at grassroots and even state level was on life support.
What the league has been gifted here — through sheer coincidence — is a chance to hit reset.
Much like the rest of us who are taking this time to exercise more, talk to our family, watch that doco we’ve been hanging for or read that book we’ve been desperate to open for months — the AFL should be focusing on self-improvement — and that starts with knowing when not to splice T-Rex DNA with a velociraptor’s.
Here are four things the AFL should focus on after its eventual return.
The Draft Age
Let’s assume there’s no more footy in 2020. I know, it sucks. But it’s looking more and more likely.
No footy means no results, which means no ladder — and that’s where a draft would get confusing. What are we supposed to do? Hand Gold Coast the number one pick again? Do a lottery? And what about all the picks that have been traded already? No.
We kill two birds with one stone.
For a while now the AFL has been keen to shift the draft eligibility age by a year. They want 19-year-old men entering the system, not 18-year-old boys. If you don’t think one year makes much difference — let me tell you, it does. Us blokes mature slow. One year is like seven years for a girl the same age.
Under 18 footy, TAC Cup, WAFL colts — they’ve all been cancelled or postponed, so where are these kids going to get their much-needed development? They can’t.
So, let’s hit pause.
Let’s scrap the 2020 draft, shift the age cut-off to 19, and push this year’s crop to the 2021 draft.
Going forward every teenager entering the league gets another year of development — and they get a year in the local leagues which can only strengthen the WAFL, VFL and SANFL.
And they get cleaner socks.
Shorter games
I hated the idea of shorter games. Records would be compromised. Statistics would be lower — devastating news for a fantasy football savant such as myself — and less football had to be a bad thing, right?
Wrong.
The 16-minute quarters worked. Players seemed more desperate to move the ball, we had closer games, and we didn’t have to commit three hours of our weekend to each fixture.
Maybe it’s 17 minutes — or 18 — but we don’t need to go back to 20.
Go Slow
No more Tassie expansion talk. As much as we’d love to see it, now is not the time. It may never be the time.
AFLW? We may seriously have to consider a reduction in teams for the next few years. The AFL is in crisis. They’ve had to mortgage Marvel Stadium. This is real.
We can’t scrap the AFLW all together — it has come too far, and too many young girls have found new heroes. The quality has risen dramatically — sorry haters. We can’t take that way.
But for its very chance at survival — let alone commercial success — we have to be realistic.
Overexpansion was fine when things were flush. They’re not anymore, and the AFLW is not yet near a place where it can finance its own operation.
These teams wouldn’t become extinct — they’d just go into hibernation.
Meanwhile, AFL footy department spending has grown faster than your data usage during lockdown.
The coach’s box on match-day is packed with 15 or more people in polo shirts. The bench is just as full. The rooms are stuffed with staffers — physios, sports scientists, marketing gurus, welfare managers, development coaches and many more. Corona has forced the hand of clubs, it’s time to cut back.
The love of the Game
For the foreseeable future the league needs to focus on its core product.
No gimmicks. No expansion. No catering for a new market with some kind of bastardised netball/touch-footy/Aussie-Rules hybrid with an X on it, you know, cause the letter X is cool.
No.
We already love the game. We love the stars, the prodigies, the next wave coming through — the characters, like Dusty and Ross and Toby and all the other one-name icons.
Play great footy, keep it simple, embrace the natural evolution of our great game and, above all, don’t take fans for granted.
If this never-ending Corona nightmare has taught us anything, its that footy without fans is not the same.
That hit me the other day when watching the Crows take on the Swans. Tom Papley kicked a fantastic goal, and in his usual cheeky way ran toward the parochial Adelaide crowd to feed off their disapproval. But they weren’t there. Papley almost seemed shocked, and he was definitely disappointed.
This is our game — your game. We love it because it just is.
Now Gill, please, when you eventually come back — let’s keep it that way.
