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All-Australian selections are overrated

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PJays

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Does anyone else think All-Australian selections are overrated?

I was thinking about the topic this week, while reading a fellow Saints fan debating Eagles fans about Callum Wilkie vs Jeremy McGovern. Eagles fans kept mentioning McGovern's 5 AA's to Wilkie's 1.

So who decides the AA team? The AA selection panel includes:

- AFL execs who barely played footy at all let alone professionally (Andrew Dillon, Laura Kane).

- Ex-players from the media. Ultimately they're paid to entertain listeners (like Kane Cornes).

- Ex-players who haven't been involved in a playing or coaching capacity for decades. (Example: Glen Jakovich- retired in 2004, before any of today's coaches coached their first game. Alistair Clarkson started in 2005).

- Female players. It's not sexist to note that AFLW is a very different game to AFL.

They're just offering general opinions based on their observations and the stats. I doubt they're spending 20-25 hours every week watching every game. I find it hard to believe they'll all be tuning in to Port vs West Coast tomorrow!

Coaches votes are a far more reliable indicator of who's valuable than AA.

Coaches votes are completed on a game-by-game basis, by the two coaches who spent the entire week preparing for the opposition and then spent 2.5 hours in the coaches box and talking to their players at half-time, strategizing on how to win.

The coaches are the people ultimately responsible for directing the 46 players on the field, and making sure their 23 blokes win. Then they tell us who the best 5 players were.

AA is better than the Brownlow but it's not comparable to coaches votes as a guide to the best players. Not close.
 
PJays said:
Does anyone else think All-Australian selections are overrated?

I was thinking about the topic this week, while reading a fellow Saints fan debating Eagles fans about Callum Wilkie vs Jeremy McGovern. Eagles fans kept mentioning McGovern's 5 AA's to Wilkie's 1.

So who decides the AA team? The AA selection panel includes:

- AFL execs who barely played footy at all let alone professionally (Andrew Dillon, Laura Kane).

- Ex-players from the media. Ultimately they're paid to entertain listeners (like Kane Cornes).

- Ex-players who haven't been involved in a playing or coaching capacity for decades. (Example: Glen Jakovich- retired in 2004, before any of today's coaches coached their first game. Alistair Clarkson started in 2005).

- Female players. It's not sexist to note that AFLW is a very different game to AFL.

They're just offering general opinions based on their observations and the stats. I doubt they're spending 20-25 hours every week watching every game. I find it hard to believe they'll all be tuning in to Port vs West Coast tomorrow!

Coaches votes are a far more reliable indicator of who's valuable than AA.

Coaches votes are completed on a game-by-game basis, by the two coaches who spent the entire week preparing for the opposition and then spent 2.5 hours in the coaches box and talking to their players at half-time, strategizing on how to win.

The coaches are the people ultimately responsible for directing the 46 players on the field, and making sure their 23 blokes win. Then they tell us who the best 5 players were.

AA is better than the Brownlow but it's not comparable to coaches votes as a guide to the best players. Not close.
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Yes and no, but you've probably chosen an awful benchmark to compare.
McGovern is a rare breed of a genuine role benchmarking player. That modern intercepting floating tall is benchmarked off of the 197 games he played.

Still, broadly speaking I do agree with you that it isn't the most meritorious selection process.
My issue is seldom who they pick per se, and admittedly sometimes they have stinkers, its more the selection of players out of position and thus it isn't a reflection on the best players in that position.

So.. yeah, a 5 x AFL coaches association vote probably does carry more weight than the AA panel. I don't disagree.

I would challenge your last line though - why is the AA team better than the Brownlow? Are you putting the media you criticize in the first line ahead of the umpires? That's a weird bow to draw.
 
The biggest hole in the selectors (and in media performers) is they don’t watch every game. I don’t know how you’re meant to judge players when you don’t watch them all.

Anybody working full time “analysing” footy should be doing it. It’s not hard if it’s your job.
 
So there's two main reasons I think coaches votes are superior.

1. I trust coaches to judge who the most valuable players are, over AFL execs, ex-players and AFLW players.

2. Game-by-game voting is more systematic and reliable than general opinions and stats from people who haven't watched every game.

However, there is one downside to coaches votes or any game-by-game system.

It tells you who the best 5 or 6 players on the ground were, according to those who should know. However it says nothing about the 9th best player vs the 40th best player. You don't lose votes for bad games. It can reward inconsistency, or fail to reward consistency.

This can be illustrated by an example. Compare two key forwards.

Player A. Kicks a bag of 5 goals on 6 occasions with spectacular performances. Gets 8-10 votes each time. But also misses 5 games through injury. Plus has 5 games where they're terrible, turning the ball over 10 times and don't goal, and costs his team the game. Kicks 45 goals for the year.

Player B. Consistently kicks 2-4 goals each week, providing the main marking target on a good team. Rarely dominates a game but almost always one of the better players. Plays every game and kicks 65 goals for the season.

Player A could easily get 40-45 coaches votes, while player B might only get 20-30.
 

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Mop said:
I would challenge your last line though - why is the AA team better than the Brownlow? Are you putting the media you criticize in the first line ahead of the umpires? That's a weird bow to draw.
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Because umpires are specifically there to adjudicate the contest. They implement the rules, nothing else. By necessity they'll have tunnel vision and only watch those with the ball (or depending what position they're in, also scanning their eyes over the ground watching for indiscretions).

Their mindset is deliberately not geared towards judging who the valuable players are. Fairness? Yes. Best? No.

And like AFL execs (but unlike most of the AA selectors) half of them probably haven't even played footy.

And until this year, they weren't even allowed to look at the stats.
 
PJays said:
Does anyone else think All-Australian selections are overrated?

I was thinking about the topic this week, while reading a fellow Saints fan debating Eagles fans about Callum Wilkie vs Jeremy McGovern. Eagles fans kept mentioning McGovern's 5 AA's to Wilkie's 1.

So who decides the AA team? The AA selection panel includes:

- AFL execs who barely played footy at all let alone professionally (Andrew Dillon, Laura Kane).

- Ex-players from the media. Ultimately they're paid to entertain listeners (like Kane Cornes).

- Ex-players who haven't been involved in a playing or coaching capacity for decades. (Example: Glen Jakovich- retired in 2004, before any of today's coaches coached their first game. Alistair Clarkson started in 2005).

- Female players. It's not sexist to note that AFLW is a very different game to AFL.

They're just offering general opinions based on their observations and the stats. I doubt they're spending 20-25 hours every week watching every game. I find it hard to believe they'll all be tuning in to Port vs West Coast tomorrow!

Coaches votes are a far more reliable indicator of who's valuable than AA.

Coaches votes are completed on a game-by-game basis, by the two coaches who spent the entire week preparing for the opposition and then spent 2.5 hours in the coaches box and talking to their players at half-time, strategizing on how to win.

The coaches are the people ultimately responsible for directing the 46 players on the field, and making sure their 23 blokes win. Then they tell us who the best 5 players were.

AA is better than the Brownlow but it's not comparable to coaches votes as a guide to the best players. Not close.
Click to expand...

Completely correct. I'll add another big, if not huge reason, why it's standing to me is diminished now.

Too many selections are established favourites of the selectors. If you get to say 3-4 All-Australian selections, and you're a star player with a high media profile, there's a very good chance you'll just keep getting them as long as you stay upright and breathing. Then it becomes a self fulfilling achievement.

Why is player x better than player y?

"Well he's won 8 All-Australians"
"Maybe, but at least two of them were extremely arguable"
"But the selectors thought differently"
"What was it based on then?"
"Well he's won 8 All-Australians"
 
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PJays said:
Does anyone else think All-Australian selections are overrated?

I was thinking about the topic this week, while reading a fellow Saints fan debating Eagles fans about Callum Wilkie vs Jeremy McGovern. Eagles fans kept mentioning McGovern's 5 AA's to Wilkie's 1.

So who decides the AA team? The AA selection panel includes:

- AFL execs who barely played footy at all let alone professionally (Andrew Dillon, Laura Kane).

- Ex-players from the media. Ultimately they're paid to entertain listeners (like Kane Cornes).

- Ex-players who haven't been involved in a playing or coaching capacity for decades. (Example: Glen Jakovich- retired in 2004, before any of today's coaches coached their first game. Alistair Clarkson started in 2005).

- Female players. It's not sexist to note that AFLW is a very different game to AFL.

They're just offering general opinions based on their observations and the stats. I doubt they're spending 20-25 hours every week watching every game. I find it hard to believe they'll all be tuning in to Port vs West Coast tomorrow!

Coaches votes are a far more reliable indicator of who's valuable than AA.

Coaches votes are completed on a game-by-game basis, by the two coaches who spent the entire week preparing for the opposition and then spent 2.5 hours in the coaches box and talking to their players at half-time, strategizing on how to win.

The coaches are the people ultimately responsible for directing the 46 players on the field, and making sure their 23 blokes win. Then they tell us who the best 5 players were.

AA is better than the Brownlow but it's not comparable to coaches votes as a guide to the best players. Not close.
Click to expand...
do you think Wilkie is better than McGovern?
 
I don't disagree that the AA selection panel has its flaws and biases, especially when it comes to the star players.

Almost all of the top AA winners (think Danger, Gawn, Gov, Bont etc.) have a couple of gongs that they would not have got if a lesser known player had played the same season.

But I don't think coaches votes are better. Apart from the obvious that it only rates the top 5, with a lean towards the winning team, there are obviously incentives for coaches to help their players win the award. And that's if they spend more than 20 seconds on it, which I doubt.

There is no perfect award system, at least the AA has a clear mandate and meets throughout the year. I'd like to see a bigger and more varied selection panel though to canvas more opinions.
 
I actually think they've been pretty good, at least when I compare it each year to what I have, and what the consensus is, over the last 10+ years.

Maybe 5-10 years ago, I would think that there were 3-5 changes I would make - either to the squad or to the team.

In the last 5 years, generally its only 2-3 changes I would make.

(To be clear, this is not changes I'd make to the structure of the team, ie too many midfielders on the wing and half forward or whatever. Rather, given that they picked a certain number of players in this position, I think that that player was not ranked higher within their position).

I don't think the individual panel members itself is that great, but that's why you have a panel, they can work together and cancel out the outliers in opinion that any one panel member would make. And I think they've gone a better job at educating themselves via advance stats and taking direction from unbiased analysts who watch all games (ie, the champion data people that go on different podcasts and radio shows during the week), and providing a pretty good team.
 
Partridge said:
Completely correct. I'll add another big, if not huge reason, why it's standing to me is diminished now.

Too many selections are established favourites of the selectors. If you get to say 3-4 All-Australian selections, and you're a star player with a high media profile, there's a very good chance you'll just keep getting them as long as you stay upright and breathing. Then it becomes a self fulfilling achievement.

Why is player x better than player y?

"Well he's won 8 All-Australians"
"Maybe, but at least two of them were extremely arguable"
"But the selectors thought differently"
"What was it based on then?"
"Well he's won 8 All-Australians"
Click to expand...
Bit like Grammy Awards
 
Agreed with the OP.

It’s just another fan-voted award, only the fans in this case are predominantly ex-players who argue for players at their own clubs.
 

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threenewpadlocks said:
I actually think they've been pretty good, at least when I compare it each year to what I have, and what the consensus is, over the last 10+ years.

Maybe 5-10 years ago, I would think that there were 3-5 changes I would make - either to the squad or to the team.

In the last 5 years, generally its only 2-3 changes I would make.

(To be clear, this is not changes I'd make to the structure of the team, ie too many midfielders on the wing and half forward or whatever. Rather, given that they picked a certain number of players in this position, I think that that player was not ranked higher within their position).

I don't think the individual panel members itself is that great, but that's why you have a panel, they can work together and cancel out the outliers in opinion that any one panel member would make. And I think they've gone a better job at educating themselves via advance stats and taking direction from unbiased analysts who watch all games (ie, the champion data people that go on different podcasts and radio shows during the week), and providing a pretty good team.
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This is it for me.

I think criticism of the AA team is overrated. While the team they pick each year may not man for man have the same 22 as what the fans think it should be I'd say that overall they do a good job picking the best 40 players for the squad.

And I can't recall a player who ends up with a fortunate squad selection ending up making the final team so overall I'd say the AA process gives a good representation of the better players for a given season.

But with caveats, small forwards are often selected. But small defenders and medium are not. Your Sheppard, Hardwick, Bews, Lester, Grimes, Vlastuin types are overlooked for high possession rebound defenders. Same goes for wingmen who get overlooked for mids on the regular. Guys like Gaff, Mcluggage, Duncan etc are under represented with recognition.

And I'd say that if you were to rank all players by AAs won it'd be accurately reflective of who the true greats of our game were. Wouldn't be a player with 4+ entries that wasn't a great of the game.
 
Strapping Young Lad said:
It’s just another fan-voted award, only the fans in this case are predominantly ex-players who argue for players at their own clubs.
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Well there's no transparency or accountability about it.

It's just "this is the selection panel, and here's the team".

There's no "6 selectors voted for Tim English and 4 voted for Rowan Marshall", or "these were Kane Cornes' selections".
 
PJays said:
Well there's no transparency or accountability about it.

It's just "this is the selection panel, and here's the team".

There's no "6 selectors voted for Tim English and 4 voted for Rowan Marshall", or "these were Kane Cornes' selections".
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Where's the accountability for the voting for any accolade/award in the AFL? They are all flawed, subjective appraisals in some way except for the Coleman.
 
Mr Meow said:
Where's the accountability for the voting for any accolade/award in the AFL? They are all flawed, subjective appraisals in some way except for the Coleman.
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We know who the coaches are and who the umpires are.

We don't know who each coaching group voted for specifically, but we know exactly how many votes everyone got in every game.

Its way more transparent than "here's a big group of execs and ex-players and AFLW players, and here's who they collectively selected as the best team of the entire year".
 
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PJays said:
We know who the coaches are and who the umpires are. And we know who got the votes each game.

We don't know who each coaching group voted for specifically, but its way more accountable than "here's a big group of execs and ex-players and AFLW players, and here's who they collectively selected as the best team of the entire year".
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Exactly, we don't know which coaches vote for who each game. 36-41 players don't get votes each game, so how are their games measured?

Every umpire has their own bias and this is a side gig as opposed to their actual stressful job, so why is an amalgamation of their votes sacred?

League MVP is just a big poll.

Every award is flawed in some way or has major limitations/caveats. Every statistical method too.
 

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HairyO said:
I dunno. I reckon the AA selectors did a great job in 2008.

The coaches arent free of criticism. Some are very happy playing favourites with their votes. And invariably the coach of the year award is given to the wrong coach.
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2008 was one of the great AA calls.

Chris Judd took over a team at Carlton that had missed the finals, and did such an inspiring, incredible job that they.........missed the finals*. Enough to earn him the All-Australian captaincy however. It's not like there was a player in the team who had captained his team to a 21-1 record that season.

(* - He did send back a bowl of chips though.)
 
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PJays said:
We know who the coaches are and who the umpires are.

We don't know who each coaching group voted for specifically, but we know exactly how many votes everyone got in every game.

Its way more transparent than "here's a big group of execs and ex-players and AFLW players, and here's who they collectively selected as the best team of the entire year".
Click to expand...
We don't even necessarily know how the 4 umpires decided upon their 3-2-1 in the Brownlow, it's a "panel" of four of them no different to the AA panel. It's not as if the 4 different umpires give their own 321 as is the case with the coaches giving their own 5-4-3-2-1. Strange view.
 
Mr Meow said:
Exactly, we don't know which coaches vote for who each game. 36-41 players don't get votes each game, so how are their games measured?
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That's fair.

It's a weakness of any game-by-game voting system. It can reward inconsistency. And fail to recognise those who are consistently good but rarely great.

But, with this discussion we're mostly debating the greatness of great players who rarely play terrible games and usually play quite well. The inconsistency piece isn't as relevant as say, if you were using a game-by-game system for rookie of the year where inconsistency is more prevalent.

Mr Meow said:
Every award is flawed in some way or has major limitations/caveats. Every statistical method too.
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No doubt.

But I'm taking the expert judgements of current AFL coaches voting on who influenced the outcome of every individual game, above the general opinions of business-people, ex-AFLW players and ex-players who don't even watch every game.
 
I thought 90% of last years team was spot on. The Josh Battle selection was an absolute joke given Worrell was next in line.
 
What is unnecessary is the 44 player squad that is named prior to the team being named. It serves no purpose. Either a player made the team or they did not.
 
Clark G said:
What is unnecessary is the 44 player squad that is named prior to the team being named. It serves no purpose. Either a player made the team or they did not.
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Disagree, it's part of footy tradition to have bigger squads in a representative sense before cutting down to an actual team

For example the VFL named 43 players for their game vs SANFL recently. Only a smaller team will actually make the trip, but it's good recognition for those 43 players anyway.

We can treat the leftover 22 as a "All-Australian 2nd team" if you prefer framing it that way, surely.
 

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