Fixture Does Playing in the Opening Round Give Teams an Unfair Advantage in Round 1?

[JP2]

Intuitively it makes sense to me. Teams at the beginning of their seasons are still blowing the cobwebs away - which is part of the reason why you typically got so many anomalous results in round 1 of a season - so you would think that a team which has already had the chance to get a game under their belts are going to have an advantage over a team playing its first real match for the year. So I checked the stats, and so far over the past two seasons there have been seven round 1 games where a team which played in OR played a team which didn't, and the OR teams (in bold) have a 5-2 record:

GWS 121 - NM 82
GC 60 - ADEL 54
MEL 109 - WB 64
FREO 93 - BRIS 70
HAW 111 - ESS 85
SYD 82 - BRIS 86
COLL 136 - PA 45

The two OR sides who didn't win were Brisbane (who had a slow start to the year in general) last year in Perth, and Sydney this year who lost by 4 points to the reigning premiers. So 5-2 is hardly conclusive, but if anything it does suggest some advantage to the OR teams. (Also probably worth nothing that 6 of the 7 OR teams had the second advantage of a home fixture in round 1!)

But I think it's more interesting when we look at the first quarter scores, where the teams which didn't play in the OR are likely to be at their rustiest:

GWS 27 - NM 12
GC 20 - ADEL 7
MEL 28 - WB 27
FREO 14 - BRIS 27
HAW 37 - ESS 10
SYD 24 - BRIS 9
COLL 41 - PA 20

Now there's a much more clear correlation. OR teams have gone 7/7 in first quarters against non-OR teams, and in 6 of those 7 matches the quarter time margin was greater than two goals. Now this might not seem like such a big advantage, but it's worth noting that GC and Hawthorn had leads at quarter time which were greater than their final margin of victory (i.e. they would have lost, in theory, had the scores been level at quarter time). If the AFL persists with the OR concept after the debacle this year, then I think they should at least be aware of the potential unfairness of this kind of fixture, and have it so that the teams which play in the OR only play other OR teams in round 1 (such as Rich vs Carl and Syd vs Coll in round 1 last year).

Thoughts?

 

[mouncey2franklin]

Excellent work JP2

You look at stuff like this and it reminds you that we follow a glorified, over-capitalised bush league.

 

[Underarm]

Intuitively it makes sense to me. Teams at the beginning of their seasons are still blowing the cobwebs away - which is part of the reason why you typically got so many anomalous results in round 1 of a season - so you would think that a team which has already had the chance to get a game under their belts are going to have an advantage over a team playing its first real match for the year. So I checked the stats, and so far over the past two seasons there have been seven round 1 games where a team which played in OR played a team which didn't, and the OR teams (in bold) have a 5-2 record:

GWS 121 - NM 82
GC 60 - ADEL 54
MEL 109 - WB 64
FREO 93 - BRIS 70
HAW 111 - ESS 85
SYD 82 - BRIS 86
COLL 136 - PA 45

The two OR sides who didn't win were Brisbane (who had a slow start to the year in general) last year in Perth, and Sydney this year who lost by 4 points to the reigning premiers. So 5-2 is hardly conclusive, but if anything it does suggest some advantage to the OR teams. (Also probably worth nothing that 6 of the 7 OR teams had the second advantage of a home fixture in round 1!)

But I think it's more interesting when we look at the first quarter scores, where the teams which didn't play in the OR are likely to be at their rustiest:

GWS 27 - NM 12
GC 20 - ADEL 7
MEL 28 - WB 27
FREO 14 - BRIS 27
HAW 37 - ESS 10
SYD 24 - BRIS 9
COLL 41 - PA 20

Now there's a much more clear correlation. OR teams have gone 7/7 in first quarters against non-OR teams, and in 6 of those 7 matches the quarter time margin was greater than two goals. Now this might not seem like such a big advantage, but it's worth noting that GC and Hawthorn had leads at quarter time which were greater than their final margin of victory (i.e. they would have lost, in theory, had the scores been level at quarter time). If the AFL persists with the OR concept after the debacle this year, then I think they should at least be aware of the potential unfairness of this kind of fixture, and have it so that the teams which play in the OR only play other OR teams in round 1 (such as Rich vs Carl and Syd vs Coll in round 1 last year).

Thoughts?

I would argue only 4 of those were competitive matchups to begin with, and freo over Brisbane the only real shock.

 

[markm106]

This is something I have thought also. But I guess we’ll need a bigger sample size and also information from players/clubs. Surely if there’s a thought this could disadvantaging teams not playing round 0 then the round 0 teams play each other in round one. But the AFL just don’t think that way.
I’m hoping the Dees buck the trend tomorrow.

 

[ibd77]

To be honest, the 8 teams scheduled last week could have played each other this week to avoid this situation.

But no, let's schedule an SA and a WA team away as their first game against sides that already played the week before not factoring in Cyclones of course

Why not have Collingwood vs Geelong tonight at the MCG In front of 90k+

 

[BF Tiger]

Yes it does, and then those teams get an extra bye during the season as well.

Make it make sense.

 

[WindyHillZephyr]

The accumulated first quarter scores for teams who played round 0 vs first game in Rd 1 is
19.6 to 7.11. It quantitatively proves what we expected. The marketing arm of the AFL won't give a toss though.

 

[Pistol Night]

To be honest if having a round 1 advantage means getting belted in round 0 id rather pass on it

 

[lalorGOAT]

Also, consider that the afl are trying to schedule the better teams for opening round. No strong evidence yet.