News ‘Would be unreal’: AFL to consult clubs over addition of ‘wildcard round’ to finals

[Corn Cobbers]

This makes me wanna puke

 

[St 07]

No. **** off

 

[Oxirane]

If they are going to invalidate the home and away records, they could do a weighted lottery of the teams outside of the eight (except last) and draw 2 teams for 7th and 8th to play to qualify finals. That way a team could get number 2 pick and also have a 0.10% chance to try knock out 7th to qualify for finals and win the flag.

 

[Teen Wolf]

I was told the difference between this and just a top 10 is that these wildcard matches will be something like a "first team to 100 points wins" type of thing. And it'll be called AFL Wild Shootout Weekend.

 

[Redline]

Gives " made the eight" more uncertainty.
If you finish as high as 7th why should you have to play off for your finals spot to a team that finished as low as10th?

Agree, that's what the 23 rounds are for.

There are barely 8 teams that deserve to make it as it is.

 

[Borussia Teeth]

**** off and kill it with fire.

 

[GC2015]

What a stupid idea. Mediocre sides (like mine) don't deserve to play finals, and we need to stop importing all this American s**t to Australia.

Were the 9th placed Blues mediocre last year? 12 wins 10 losses with a percentage of 108.3%. Not sure they were any more mediocre than the 8th placed finals participating Bulldogs with 12 wins 10 losses and a percentage of 108.9%.

 

[PieLebo87]

Why stop at 10? Get all 18 sides involved in September. How romantic would it be if 18th won a premiership?

 

[PhatBoy]

To this day the best finals system that has ever existed in Australia was the NRL’s top 5. And they didn’t even have a draft to interest the fans of sides no chance of making it. I think from memory there were 14 teams in the comp. Crowds were generally big by rugby league standards, tv ratings were great and the quality of finals football was excellent.

More doesn’t equal better

 

[Bucking Bronco]

There's a very real possibility that Richmond, Carlton and Essendon would all be involved in a 7 v 10 & 8 v 9 wildcard round if it was introduced this year. Can't tell me 90,000 at the 'G for Richmond v Carlton (or Essendon) in the wildcard round game could possibly be considered a failure. It would be absolutely massive and people will wonder why we didn't introduce it earlier.

7th will have to win 5 finals games in order to win the premiership with no weeks off since their mid-season bye, meaning 10+ straight weeks of games; whilst their likely top 4 opponent will need to win only 3 finals games, and will enjoy 2 extra weeks off (Wild Card week and Semi-Final week).

You think that is fair all so a 10 win, 12 loss team after 23 games can play finals?

 

[hcd199]

Were the 9th placed Blues mediocre last year? 12 wins 10 losses with a percentage of 108.3%. Not sure they were any more mediocre than the 8th placed finals participating Bulldogs with 12 wins 10 losses and a percentage of 108.9%.

12-10 is absolutely a mediocre record - and I'd say Carlton were about, ooh, 0.6% more mediocre than the Bulldogs last year...

But seriously, consider what thrilling contests we would've been in the last five seasons:
2022: Western Bulldogs vs Carlton; Richmond vs St. Kilda
2021: Essendon vs West Coast; GWS vs St. Kilda
2020: Collingwood vs Melbourne; Western Bulldogs vs GWS
2019: Essendon vs Hawthorn; Western Bulldogs vs Port Adelaide
2018: Geelong vs North Melbourne; GWS vs Port Adelaide

Regardless of whether a couple of 'big' clubs meeting would draw a crowd, or whether the final results would be close or whatever - those are some pretty uninspiring match-ups when you consider the standard of those sides that missed out (and in some cases, those that actually did make the 8) in those seasons. Hawks and Eagles well off the boil a few years after their flag(s), Ratten's Saints and Hinkley's Power at their most water-treading, GWS not quite putting it all together... all so drearily average, and not at all meeting the increased expectations we rightly have for finalists. Thresholds exist for a reason...

 

[tiger_tough]

If you don't finish in the top half of the ladder you don't deserve a crack at finals, thats ridiculous. I could cop an 8v9 game on the bye weekend to qualify for finals the following week but not a 7v10, 8v9. **** that. Maybe when we have a 20 team comp.

 

[BringBackTheAnchor]

Classic AFL house flogs, wonder if the focus groups said this was a good idea.

 

[BigPond101]

Looks like Andrew Dillon is going to be a disaster as CEO

 

[bungalow_bill]

Unreal maybe for 9th and 10th but sucks for 7th and 8th. A shit idea and a back door way to introduce a 10 team finals series

 

[BigVic]

Not a fan. NFL diluted the playoffs with the addition of a Super Wildcard weekend a few years back

 

[Corn Cobbers]

There are already too many teams in the finals

Bring back the Five, reward top spot properly

 

[Whiskers]

The only sport where it actually makes sense is the NFL.

The wildcards there are the teams with the best W/L record who didn't win their division. Often they have more wins than the teams who qualified directly. Last season Tampa Bay (8-9) finished 4th and the wildcards were Dallas (12-5), New York (9-1-7) and Seattle (9-8).

In the AFL it's just a thinly disguised way to the extend the finals series. As it is in the NBA.

This is perfectly said.
If the AFL want to use American terminology just say 5v8 and 6v7 are wildcards to make the top 6.
It’s the same damn thing.
Just more elimination finals, they aren’t wildcards.

 

[Scritchyscroony]

Why stop at 10? Get all 18 sides involved in September. How romantic would it be if 18th won a premiership?

A Spooniership would become the ultimate prize in footy. A flag plus the no1 draft pick. That's the true holy grail right there.

 

[Baudolino]

The AFL’s, SEN’s and Fox Footy‘s sycophantic want to a be all things NFL is the height of cultural cringe.

I'm sick of exactly this. What is with their OBSESSION with Americanising the AFL?

They genuinely seem to prefer the NFL to the AFL. If that's the case, can they not just **** off to America and go cover that sport instead? Some of us like AFL, and AFL culture, because we prefer both our own sport and our own sporting traditions.

 

[spudmaster]

Just go the whole hog and make it a final eighteen and they can start charging finals prices for tickets from round1 while teams 'jostle for position'.

 

[Danw0w]

Why the **** would they change the finals? They have the perfect system already!

 

[Madas]

If they are going to invalidate the home and away records, they could do a weighted lottery of the teams outside of the eight and draw 2 teams for 7th and 8th to play to qualify finals. That way a team could get the wooden spoon and number 1 pick and also have a 0.025% chance to try knock out 7th to qualify for finals and win the flag.

Just accept the spoon with dignity and move on

 

[estibador]

For the fiftieth fuggin time this is not what a wildcard round is, it's just a final ten FFS.

Yeah if they really wanted to be closer to the spirit of real wildcard rounds, they should do something like select the two teams who have the best record against the current top 8.

Or maybe the two teams who have the best record in the final 10 games or something.

 

[Altum Volantes]

Only a matter of time, I think everyone knew that right?

2 extra ‘Finals’ - they can’t not help themselves to that in the name of ‘the people demanding it’ (aka people will give us more money and TV stations will get more viewers).

The Vic media will be onboard too, for obvious reasons. That’s pretty much all you need now to get something like this done.