Discussion 17-5 FIXTURE MODEL

[CursingFijian]

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2015-09-17/time-for-175-fixture-debate-gale

RICHMOND CEO Brendon Gale doesn't like the current fixture and thinks the debate about how it should look in the future needs to be revived.

Gale told Melbourne radio station SEN that club CEOs quickly dismissed the 17-5 fixture model when the AFL tabled it at a meeting in May because of commercial considerations. But he said the issue was important enough to examine further.

He revealed that he had discussed the matter with AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan a few weeks ago and both had agreed the matter needed proper assessment.

"It might be time to bring it up and have a decent discussion and debate around it," Gale said.

The 17-5 model means all 18 teams play each other once in the first 17 rounds before the League is broken into three groups of six where qualifiers are played for the finals and draft picks.

The top six teams then play for top four spots, the middle six teams play for seventh and eighth spot, and the bottom six would play to determine the draft order.

Those against the model raised concerns about blockbusters, home games and using such a small sample to determine draft picks.

Gale said if the fixture worked against a club it could erode the progress a club was making.

"You can work your butt off to get that extra one per cent of improvement and effort to compete and win and yet if the fixture is in your favour or not it can make a huge difference," Gale said.

"I don't like the current fixture as it stands and I think this (the 17-5 model) is a serious step towards addressing the inequity to the fixture. And if that's the case, I think we should look at it."

McLachlan repeated on AFL 360 on Wednesday night his view that the problems created when clubs rested players in round 23 were best addressed through a fixture model that didn't potentially advantage one team over another.

However, he said the 17-5 model would need serious discussion and would take time to be implemented.

"I've always thought that there was a discussion for it. If it gets up, it will be ready for 2017 or beyond," McLachlan said.

More By Peter Ryan

 

[CursingFijian]

Will this eliminate tanking? While I like the idea of an equitable fixture, I am not entirely convinced this is a sustainable solution. I forecast that clubs would still maniuplate teams in order to increase the probability of qualifying for the group that best suits the club's medium term strategy. Teams will still rest players in preparation for the series of 5.

 

[aussierulesrules]

I really like this idea, except perhaps the part about how the bottom 6 play off for draft position, which could encourage tanking and sending half your squad in for early season-ending surgery. I think it should be set at the end of the first 17 games.

 

[sauce_head]

It's almost a good idea. But the bottom six doesn't work. Why should the 6th worst team get the best pick? And if the future draft picks have been traded, who cares?

Playing each team once before playing a team a second time is the only way forward. It's rediculous that a team can play another twice without first playing all teams.

 

[Armitage2Riewoldt]

Hang on, so is their record after round 17 kept or is it wiped clean and the finals are determined from their W/L and % from Round 18 onwards?

It would be strange for the team that finishes 13th, after just missing out on a spot to compete for a finals place to be in with a shot at the #1 pick 5 week later.

Would at least mean there's mostly competitive games towards the end of the season. No more facing off against North, West Coast, Port and Sydney in our last 5 weeks...

 

[Nutsngum]

Of all teams i am puzzled that Richmond, who required a 9game winning streak at the end of last year to get into the finals, would be ones to bring something like this up.

Tight seasons like this one in regard to competitiveness will suffer under this system when the top 4 wasnt really decided until rd 20 or 21. 5 games is a huge difference and 17 games is still unfair as certain teams have a definite home ground advantage.

 

[The Punter]

This is smashing a peanut with a sledgehammer. So a few blokes get rested in Round 23, so what?

As with almost all things, the AFL should look to the NFL for its response. Which is nothing.

 

[L_W_P]

So so dumb.

Not just tanking etc but from a fixture POV.

What if the top 6 are say Hawthorn, Freo, Sydney, West Coast, Port and Richmond and Richmond and Hawthorn have already played those non Vuc teams away?

That would mean they have a run of 6 straight home games to finish the season.

How to you manage that as far as stadium availability? How do clubs work memberships with reserved seating?

Its just insane that this is being brought up as an option!

You want teams going all out in round 23? Lock it in as a 'rivalry' round.

WCE v Freo
Port v Adel
GWS v Syd
Bris v GC
Ess v Haw
Coll v Carl
Stk v WB
NM v Rich
Geel v Melb

Build these games up like mini grand finals. Hey Essendon fans, your team might not have made finals but you want your best team on the park to claim the Hawks scalp and finish the year!!

You think the WA media would let Ross the Boss rest half his side for a derby?

Means less travel issues, less resting issues and a bigger build to round 23!

 

[Murraj1966]

So so dumb.

Not just tanking etc but from a fixture POV.

What if the top 6 are say Hawthorn, Freo, Sydney, West Coast, Port and Richmond and Richmond and Hawthorn have already played those non Vuc teams away?

That would mean they have a run of 6 straight home games to finish the season.

How to you manage that as far as stadium availability? How do clubs work memberships with reserved seating?

Its just insane that this is being brought up as an option!

You want teams going all out in round 23? Lock it in as a 'rivalry' round.

WCE v Freo
Port v Adel
GWS v Syd
Bris v GC
Ess v Haw
Coll v Carl
Stk v WB
NM v Rich
Geel v Melb

Build these games up like mini grand finals. Hey Essendon fans, your team might not have made finals but you want your best team on the park to claim the Hawks scalp and finish the year!!

Means less travel issues, less resting issues and a bigger build to round 23!

I'd say you should work for the AFL but you'd be sacked day one for an idea that's not pants on head idiotic

 

[joop]

So instead of a couple of teams resting players in the last round, you potentially have 6 teams resting players (tanking) for 5 rounds?? How do they come up with these ideas?

 

[Nutsngum]

I am not even really sure what the supposed problem is. Its not a perfect system but short of cutting the teams down to 12 youll never get an even 11 home and 11 away games in the year anyway.
The system we have now where you play last years bracket more often is fine as it is and works well enough.

 

[Saintos The ITK]

The problem is only caused due to trying to manipulate the draw for broadcast purposes. It will never work or be fair to all. Im In favour of totally random selection. If you get a lot of travel or six day breaks. Bad luck. It's not like its equitable now.

 

[sauce_head]

So so dumb.

Not just tanking etc but from a fixture POV.

What if the top 6 are say Hawthorn, Freo, Sydney, West Coast, Port and Richmond and Richmond and Hawthorn have already played those non Vuc teams away?

That would mean they have a run of 6 straight home games to finish the season.

How to you manage that as far as stadium availability? How do clubs work memberships with reserved seating?

Its just insane that this is being brought up as an option!

You want teams going all out in round 23? Lock it in as a 'rivalry' round.

WCE v Freo
Port v Adel
GWS v Syd
Bris v GC
Ess v Haw
Coll v Carl
Stk v WB
NM v Rich
Geel v Melb

Build these games up like mini grand finals. Hey Essendon fans, your team might not have made finals but you want your best team on the park to claim the Hawks scalp and finish the year!!

You think the WA media would let Ross the Boss rest half his side for a derby?

Means less travel issues, less resting issues and a bigger build to round 23!

Ross would not care who they played if he thought it was best to rest. Hasn't he done that v the Eagles before anyway?

 

[FlyingSledghamer]

I think its a good system and it can work.
Imagine how much fairer and truer result you would get if everyone played each other in the first 17 rounds. Then the ladder got split into 3 groups of 6. 1-6 7-12 13-18 for the last 6 rounds. And the last 6 rounds are then established and locked in by position 1st v 6th then 1st v 5th then 1st v 4th and so on through the groups. Until round 23 when 1st is playing 2nd 7th is playing 8th and 13th is playing 14th in the final round..
You cannot get a more even competition than that.
They should also look at scrapping the finals double chance and the rest.
Elimination finals every game.
Why not just play 1st v 4th 5th v 8th. Then the next week winners play off then the grand final. If you win ladder position your home final is advantage enough why have the extra advantage of home final and week off. It gives the better teams even more of advantage its counter equalization.

 

[L_W_P]

How do you make a 17-5 game fixture 'fair'?

Let's do on for Freo -

Away - Port, GWS, GC, Carl, Coll, Stk, Geel, Rich
Home - Adel, Syd, Bris, Ess, Haw, WB, Melb, NM
Neutral - WCE

That's 17 games.

Now if they finish top 6 with Haw, Syd, WCE, WB and North then Fremantle have to play away in 4/5 games to finish the year. That's not fair.

If the fixture was flipped then they would be playing at home for those games which is also an unfair advantage.

Unless you can be 100% certain that a 17 round fixture is going to give every team a balanced number of home games, travel, etc AND you can have stadiums booked in for potentially 2 games a week for 5 weeks straight (as may be the case with Freo and WCE both in one group) then the 17/5 system isnt any better than what we have now.

 

[Persevering Saint]

My only concern is that it effectively makes a 6-round finals series before the 4-round finals series. That makes 10 rounds of the 27 rounds of games (H&A+Finals). That's over a third, almost half the season.

 

[FlyingSledghamer]

My only concern is that it effectively makes a 6-round finals series before the 4-round finals series. That makes 10 rounds of the 27 rounds of games (H&A+Finals). That's over a third, almost half the season.

Perc i dont think after 18 rounds the bottom 4 teams make finals as it is now anyway. But if they change it. At least it will be a fairer ladder result and 7th to 14th are still really fighting for finals positions they just play each other.. no more biased draws. Like playing bottom sides more than other teams around you. Which is really a bit of a bull**** way to do things if you think about it.

 

[SpannaMan]

I just realised that this format would work really well for priority picks.

Imagine a terrible club (e.g. this years Carlton and/or Brisbane) and they have a terrible finish to the year and end up with pick 6. The AFL could give them the first pick of the draft without too much hassle. The club would end up with picks 1 and 7. That is still really good and could really kick start a rebuild without being ridiculous 1 & 2 scenario which leads to overpowered teams like Hawthorn. I also don't think the teams at the top of the draft will be as heavily penalised as they would under the current system. There was a big difference last year with Melbourne getting pick 3, had the Dogs not traded their pick they would be out of range of Petracca/Brayshaw which would have been a pretty big blow to them. Would be bad this year because of the whole Brisbane and Schache scenario.

Taking us as an example assuming that Bruce didn't play this year; we probably would have ended up with picks 1 and 7 last year. That would have left us in a pretty good situation with use most likely getting pick ~5 this year. That is a pretty good base to build from without being ridiculous like the early 2000 drafts were.

Combine that with a more exiting finish to the year - and hence better TV rights - I can definitely see why the AFL is pushing for it.

 

[Fehring]

This is smashing a peanut with a sledgehammer. So a few blokes get rested in Round 23, so what?

As with almost all things, the AFL should look to the NFL for its response. Which is nothing.

Spot on. We don't actually have a problem. We did have a problem before teams realised that finishing bottom is not a panacea. And resting blokes on the verge of finals is just smart.

Also, I think our current four week finals series works well. The proposed idea would effectively create a ten week finals series, which is madness. We'd be exhausted by the time we got to the actual finals. And, at the other end of the ladder, the sixth bottom team would go into round 18 as the red hot favourite to win the no. 1 draft pick.

 

[psychosaints]

Hang on, so is their record after round 17 kept or is it wiped clean and the finals are determined from their W/L and % from Round 18 onwards?

It would be strange for the team that finishes 13th, after just missing out on a spot to compete for a finals place to be in with a shot at the #1 pick 5 week later.

Would at least mean there's mostly competitive games towards the end of the season. No more facing off against North, West Coast, Port and Sydney in our last 5 weeks...

How ridiculous were our last 6 rounds of the draw? Geelong being the lowest at 9 while played brisbane and carlton in the last 2 rounds. F****** disgusting!

 

[psychosaints]

I think its a good system and it can work.
Imagine how much fairer and truer result you would get if everyone played each other in the first 17 rounds. Then the ladder got split into 3 groups of 6. 1-6 7-12 13-18 for the last 6 rounds. And the last 6 rounds are then established and locked in by position 1st v 6th then 1st v 5th then 1st v 4th and so on through the groups. Until round 23 when 1st is playing 2nd 7th is playing 8th and 13th is playing 14th in the final round..
You cannot get a more even competition than that.
They should also look at scrapping the finals double chance and the rest.
Elimination finals every game.
Why not just play 1st v 4th 5th v 8th. Then the next week winners play off then the grand final. If you win ladder position your home final is advantage enough why have the extra advantage of home final and week off. It gives the better teams even more of advantage its counter equalization.

There's no way that is fair. Take the Saints of 2009, after round 17, they are 17-0. Then in the last 5 games we finished 3-2, we could lose top spot. How can you reward a team that might go 5-0 in that period but may have only won 11-12 games to round 17 and are in 6th position. That's crazy.

 

[FlyingSledghamer]

There's no way that is fair. Take the Saints of 2009, after round 17, they are 17-0. Then in the last 5 games we finished 3-2, we could lose top spot. How can you reward a team that might go 5-0 in that period but may have only won 11-12 games to round 17 and are in 6th position. That's crazy.

The fixtures not about rewarding form its about creating the most level playing field possible in order to try and get the most accurate end of year result.

 

[L_W_P]

The fixtures not about rewarding form its about creating the most level playing field possible in order to try and get the most accurate end of year result.

Go read my post again and you will see why that is impossible to do.

It really stuns me how so many smart people at the AFL haven't actually put the model in place and simulated a few seasons to see what happens.

Good luck telling a team they have to travel for the last 5 games while 3 of the other top 6 teams all play at home!

 

[FlyingSledghamer]

Go read my post again and you will see why that is impossible to do.

It really stuns me how so many smart people at the AFL haven't actually put the model in place and simulated a few seasons to see what happens.

Good luck telling a team they have to travel for the last 5 games while 3 of the other top 6 teams all play at home!

LWP home ground advantage doesn't come into it. Every team plays each other once then 5 rounds of playing the other 5 teams around you again 2 or 3 home games. Then finals..
Im not sure if some people get this idea..
Teams outside the 8 can still make finals in the last 6 rounds. Its just the fixture will be fair instead of having a bottom 4 side play 2 or 3 top 4 sides in the last 5 rounds they play teams in around them. This will effect the final 8. No more teams getting home finals and double chances because they got to play bottom 4 sides in the runn home. If they do this. Teams at the top will earn their position coming into finals..
Dunno to me its a no brainer. Itll be just a matter of time before they bring this in.

 

[L_W_P]

Home ground advantage absolutely comes into it!

If the top 6 after 17 rounds is Essendon, Collingwood, Carlton, Richmond, Hawthorn and Melbourne then NONE of those teams travel in the last 5 weeks.

If the middle group is WCE, Syd, GC, Adel, StK and Geel then teams will be flying all over the country to finish the season! It is impossible to get a fair fixture under this 17/5 system.

You casually say you play the 5 teams around you in "2 or 3 home games".

How do you decide who plays home and away? What if the Saints finish on top with WCE, Syd, Adel, GC and Geelong but we have already played them all at home?

"Fairness" would dictate that we play them away to balance things yes? Or are you going to force WCE and GC to travel away again? How is that fair?

The 17-5 system being proposed is like trying to use a cannon to kill a mosquito - The problem is annoying but it is being blown waaay out of proportion given the alternatives...