Do the equalisation methods need tweaking?

[HBF]

How to be a good team.

Step 1. Have a good administration.
Step 2. Draft well. There are gems late in the draft.
Step 3. Identify weaknesses and rectify them through trading.
Step 4. Make use of FA where beneficial.
Step 5. Have an excellent coaching team.
Step 6. Have an excellent game plan. (Usually innovative expanding on previous ideas or ahead of their time)
Step 7. Execute said game plan to ones abilities as consistently as possible.
Step 8. A bit of luck doesn't go a stray.

If all these things were easy we'd have a different team winning a flag each year.

As it currently stands only Geelong, Hawthorn and maybe Sydney have ticked these boxes. The best run clubs on-field and off-field naturally should be the best teams and win.

It all starts from the top. Why are Carlton, Brisbane, Essendon junk? They are run poorly.

Not a lot wrong with this post.
I should send these 8 steps to Carlton and see if they'll listen.

 

[the dog's kennel]

I agree that the system needs tweaking. I think there are 2 good ideas in this thread:

- Lowering the salary cap floor.

- The OP's initial proposal of non-finals teams getting two picks in the draft before finals team get their first pick. (i.e. 18th gets 1 & 11, 17th gets 2 & 12..... 9th gets 10 and 20, 8th gets 21, 7th gets 22 etc.) I think that would be an excellent means to speed up list turnover for the poorer clubs, and no-one would tank to miss the finals.

- But something needs to be done about free agency too, which I have always hated. There is the perennial suggestion that the Top 4 not be allowed to take free agents, which I am fine with.

But I think better still would be the proposal I have suggested since before free agency even started - which is that you should lower the age at which free agents can go (say 6 years), but ban anyone whose contract is over the average wage from being a free agent. If free agency is about allowing extra opportunity to neglected players then that's a great thing. Allow as much opportunity for those players as possible. But the stars of the game do NOT need free agency to get where they want. They just need to run out their contract and then ask for a trade. Look at Jake Carlisle. Look at Judd. Free agency gives these kinds of players NO extra opportunity. It just deprives their club of adequate compensation (unless that club happens to be in the bottom 4 or so - and in that case the clubs are pushing the good players out the door, which distorts the system even more). If you implemented my system you could then get rid of free agency compo completely and no-one would mind. It would fix all the problems of free agency immediately.

 

[threesixpio]

Hawthorn have used the FA rules perfectly. Fair play to them, they are supreme when it comes to organisation and administration, and they targeted exactly the types of players they needed to bring in.

I do think, however, that FA needs tweaking...dunno how, but I'm sure they will tinker because it's not working exactly as they envisaged.

James Frawley is it otherwise we traded - and traded well. This whole Hawthorn has benefitted unfairly from FA is just weird

 

[SBYM]

James Frawley is it otherwise we traded - and traded well. This whole Hawthorn has benefitted unfairly from FA is just weird

Ye..for some reason I had in my head Lake was also FA when I typed that...

Point still stands, and it's not a knock, you play the off-field game perfectly.

 

[Defacto]

See step 8.

Lol you count that as luck?

Favors from mates are not luck

 

[mcgarnacle]

Has been discussed before but perhaps the AFL should consider making it harder for the top clubs to recruit free agents.

I read this suggestion several times now.

The system shouldn't be made even more restrictive, or applicable to some and not for others. This is just one of the issues, e.g., COLA, expansion clubs and the compromised drafts, etc.

Rules have to be consistent across the entire League. It's something the AFL do poorly. It's not equalisation when procedures are manipulated for some.....and it always is.

HAW are where they are at the mo partly due to the ridiculous concept of the priority pick. What a joke. Such a tool should never be used again. The problem is some clubs have used it and some have benefitted greatly from it. Now, clubs that may have qualified for it based on old criteria will not get it.

Round 1 selections must not be manipulated by the League. The picks 1 to 18 are set from the season's standings and it's not fuxked with unless the clubs themselves trade them. No priority picks dealt with subjectively by the AFL and no FA compo picks once again administered by the AFL which bump down clubs down the order which have had no part in a FA transaction. Compo picks should be awarded at the end of rounds only so the first compo pick for any club must be selection 19. These must not be traded and must be used to select a player where it falls.

FA rules must be less restrictive. One reason it is sending players to good clubs is because by the time a player qualifies for it, he may not have many years left in the game. Older players realising their time
Might be up soon are going to chase a premiership. Relaxing the criteria so any player who has served 5 seasons in the AFL becomes a Free Agent will mean players can move relatively early in their career and not necessarily be hung up on chasing a premiership. Players who have played less than 5 years and out of contract can be restricted FAs and be dealt under tenders and draft picks.

And has been said, lower the minimum TPP floor. The current limit is effectively compromising the system from the other end.

The recruiting 'concepts' are fine. It's the way the AFL have inplemented and manipulated them which have made the outcomes what they are.

 

[Defacto]

I agree - I would make the following amendments to salary cap/player movements;

1) salary floor reduced to 80%
2) rookie contracts set at 2+1+1 years (guaranteed 2 years + club owns the rights to a further 2 year option on the contract to stop rookies walking before they make an impact)
3) free agency qualification period reduced to 6 years in the AFL
4) clubs have the option to franchise tag 2 or 3 players
5) free agency compensation only from second round onwards
6) clubs own a players contract and can trade them without consent
7) third party deals are either abolished or included in the cap - this includes deals to hire family members etc or other non-pecuniary benefits
8) priority picks remain on the table for perennial poor performers but only outside the top 10 picks

3-7 are horrible

I think compo picks should be in the first round but not inside first 10. Also no compo for a team thats won a flag inside 5 years

 

[Defacto]

Lowering the salary cap floor would have helped us pay off debt and fund recruiting as well

 

[dumb]

i don't buy the whole 'there are too many clubs so the talent pool is spread too thin'. all the clubs are going to the same place to get players. that's an argument for the quality of the game overall, not any possible disparity in talent between clubs.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

I've said it for some time, draft picks should never be allowed to be traded, and a player should have to play for the club who drafted him for at least 5 years before moving on. More than anything else, this is what causes the imbalance.

 

[dumb]

there is a weird ingrained desire for football to continually produce random and unpredictable outcomes, even when current behaviours happen well within the rules.
look at a lot of the rule changes posters on this site often propose, and even those mooted by the rules committee. if something happens repeatedly in a football game, no matter how benign - wait patiently for a fan or someone from the media to propose a rule against it.

you can't legislate success into a footy team any more than you can legislate human error out of it. good players can't play forever, teams get injuries.

 

[Inspector Malceski]

I think the post is referring to the same/ powerful teams winning and/or making the GF and equalisation is making them more powerful in luring more talent to their team. only 6 teams has filled 20 of the possibility of 22 spots in a GF since 2005

since 2005 (11 years)

Hawthorn w 4 ru 1
Geelong w 3 rp 1
Sydney w 2 ru 2
West Coast w 1 rp 2
Collingwood w 1 ru 1

Fremantle ru 1
Port ru 1
St Kilda ru 2

 

[Bucking Beads]

Hawthorn have just hit almost every move they have made out of the park. They have benefited from a few things but they have been so good that it may have not mattered much. I think expansion has helped them and the changes in the game regarding players moving for success. Brian Lake has been a huge pick up. They deserve all the Premierships they have had. No doubt it is much easier to stay on top at the moment though.

 

[Tas]

Good to see a discussion on the COLA, given we haven't had one on BF before.

I don't want to talk about it, but when people wonder why the Swans have been a top 4 team forever and their supporters are asking if equalisation needs tweaking then no matter how much you don't want to go down this path again, you need to explain why things are as they are.

Our distribution of talent is out of whack, there are massive flaws in the system which have been exploited. I don't blame clubs for exploiting the system, my club voted against Free Agency, as we voted against the 10 year rule. However, the club has a duty to the supporters to take advantage of the opportunity.

AFL was giving away long-term talent for short-term issues with the priority pick system, clubs that shot themselves in the foot (Richmond, Melbourne and Carlton) didn't benefit from it, those that made wise decisions have benefitted greatly from knee-jerk system. While they have stopped giving PPs away, there are still other fundamental flaws in the system, they have moved to make Father Son and Academy picks "fairer", however, clubs that would normally be unable to acquire such talent in the draft due to a prohibitive cost will still find that these players are acquirable, and adding in top tier talent to top teams will make it hard for the rest to dislodge them from the top.

The question comes back to "Should We" artificially dislodge them? I think if a team gets up there without benefitting from a dodgy system of handouts and stays up there then they deserve to be where they are and don't deserve to be forced to become uncompetitive due to starvation of talent imo. The crap teams are largely crap because they can't develop players or a team, there has been a ridiculous amount of talent pumped into Melbourne over the last 10 years, their system was bad and needed fixing but for too long the AFL sent boys to that club to have their careers ruined. That isn't fair on the young kids. If the AFL wants to help, they should help clubs improve their recruitment and development of players.

 

[Beasley]

Mate, that's the last thing we want to happen. It would destroy the game. The wealthier teams would dominate(similar to soccer e.g. Barcelona, Man City etc.)

A better method would be to prevent free agency players going to clubs just to win a premiership .... as Lake and Frawley have done. This only means the clubs at the top of the ladder will get the FA players, which blows the whole equalisation myth out the window.

 

[Beasley]

I love how people conveniently leave out who the hawks have lost through free agency yet bang on and on and on and on and on and on and on about getting Frawley.

No O'Rourke wasnt a free agent.
Burgoyne isnt a free agent.
Gibson wasn't a free agent.
Lake wasnt a free agent.
Macevoy wasn't a free agent.

Lake virtually was because he had one year left and he had made it known he was going .... and the strong rumours were always Hawthorn. The Bulldogs had no option bu t to try and get some value while they could.
I bet he wouldnt have gone if the AFL had a FA rule that allows free agency players to go to teams in the bottom half of the ladder, thus stoppiong the scenario of players transferring to successful clubs to simply try and be in a premiership team!

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

Whoever it was that got the deal done that landed Gunston at Hawthorn when they already had Franklin and Roughead needs a medal.

People were laughing on here when they gave up a first rounder for Burgoyne.

Go and dig out the thread about the Lake trade.

 

[SSSSSS]

Lol you count that as luck?

Favors from mates are not luck

Right place right time. But you seriously devalue the hard, risky and innovative work our club had to do off-field to even consider on-field success.

 

[Defacto]

Right place right time. But you seriously devalue the hard, risky and innovative work our club had to do off-field to even consider on-field success.

there is nothing hard or risky about accepting that sweet tassie tourism deal set-up within liberal circles

likewise theres nothing risky about buying that waverly land for $1

 

[Damon_3388]

Fixing free agency would be a good start.

Right now you can be Hawthorn, and have a free agent come to your club and fill a void in your starting 18, and also keep the first round draft pick that once upon a time you would have had to trade away. So they get potentially two gun players for the cost of one.

That's fair :-/

Umm, that's how it should be.

If you're signing a player as a free agent (meaning they are uncontracted), why should you be trading anything or sacrificing a draft pick (or being compensated with one the other way)? You're using your salary cap and list space as currency to acquire them.

People need to accept that in some situations, some clubs lose out. Usually it's because of bad management or some fault of their own.

 

[Valleyboy9]

We have lost the second most players to go home behind brisbane

That says more about your club than about money.

 

[CrowsB4hoes]

Not a lot wrong with this post.
I should send these 8 steps to Carlton and see if they'll listen.

Your CEO will just think you're an agitator.

 

[NewMelbournian]

I love the idea of stopping the top 4 from getting free agents. To make the players agree just bump up the cap a little. They'll get more money, they just won't able to contribute to stopping upward mobility. Blokes like James Frawley will actually have to be with a club on the way up.

 

[Tedeski]

It's officially the off season, so time for an off season thread!

So, in the last 15 years, 7 clubs have won flags. Those same 7 clubs have also been runners up 9 times in the last 7 years. It wouldn't be surprising if one of those 7 clubs won again next year, with Hawthorn, West Coast, Sydney and possibly Geelong aiming for the top 4 again.

Now, based on these figures it's pretty hard to say that the current equalisation methods employed by the AFL (that being the draft and the salary cap) aren't doing a very good job.

I think everyone agrees that a competition which has a healthy rotation of sides competing is much more enjoyable (unless of course your side is at the top). So what changes can be implemented to try and achieve this? Or is everything fine and once we have a few years of uninterrupted drafts we'll be okay?

I think we need to look at the structure of the draft. I don't think the way it works at the moment is ideal for the way Australian Football is played. There's probably no other team sport where the performance of one individual player is so relatively small. And yet the idea of the draft is that you can rebuild by getting to pick one player per round.

I think we should look at a draft that increases the amount of picks per round for the lower ranked side. Something like last place gets picks 1&10, second last gets 2&12, etc. Or something like that. Speed up the process of rebuilding through the draft.

No! Not at all!
Over reaction.
Just because a free agent from bottom team goes to a team that has played in the last 4 GFs & won the last 3p'ships, gives nobody the right to question that equalisation isn't working as intended.

Newbold was one of the key players in the pushing of equalisation measures so you are out of line.

 

[Tedeski]

COLA has allowed you to lure players like Franklin and Tippett, Academy has already given you Heeney, will get Mills this year. Teams that end up in the top 4 don't need or deserve a leg up on the other teams trying to catch them.

We finished 5th this year so your argument is invalid!