I'm sorry but the international sport reference was a simple reference on home ground advantage and playing at a particular ground for majority of home games. It is not the main argument.Okay so I think you're actually conflating two arguments.
The first is some generic argument about home ground advantage, which is plainly flawed especially when you start referencing international sports, which are played on standardised fields and have a home ground system that makes vastly more difference to them than what West Coast's does to West Coast. If that was your argument, you'd be happy to play 12 games at Etihad, and 2 at the MCG all year, the same as West Coast do. I'll refute that one until the cows come home, as I see no real advantage to that scenario especially when any finals would be played at the G, which half of our likely opponents would call home and the other half would've played there more often than we would anyway.
The second version of the argument, which has more merit but has nothing to do with international sports, is the advantage that the MCG tenants may have, which is the ability to play on the MCG 14 games a year, like Richmond do, and then play 2/3 of the finals series there as well. That's not a home ground advantage in most senses, in that there's no requirement for someone else to be miles from home, 'on your turf' wondering around a city that's a one team town. The stadium isn't going to be filled 99% by your own team's supporters, and you couldn't doctor the pitch or turn the town white or any of that sort of thing that might throw the opponent off their game. It would merely be somewhat advantageous over interstate teams and full time Etihad teams, if you know how to play that ground better than they do. Given the amount of time our opponents spend at the MCG facing other opponents though, it's still not as advantageous as it might otherwise be.
Having said that, I can also see advantages to a split that allowed us to play 15 games across two ovals, giving no other Victorian team any significant advantage over us. Practicing on two very different ovals also makes it easier to adapt, with some being more the skinny oval shape of Etihad, and therefore being more adaptable to those strategies, while others are more round, like the MCG and adapt better to those.
From a purely selfish perspective, I like the atmosphere at the MCG much better. I'd prefer to have more games there. But that's not particularly relevant to the performance or success of the team.
You're entitled to your opinion, but I couldn't disagree more. Playing at a particular ground makes you more familiar with that ground. The current arrangement we have in Victoria with so many neutral games makes it all the more important to play more games at one ground. Leaving the MCG was incredibly short-sighted. We left the ground that the grand final is played on for money. Not only that, but we didn't even go to the new ground full time. We're in between the two. Not really good/bad at Etihad, nor really good/bad at the MCG. Playing an extra 4 games at Etihad or an extra 5-6 games at the MCG a year will definitely improve how we play the ground. You can't possibly think that playing 5-6 extra MCG won't change anything. Richmond are very dominant at the MCG, but not that good at Etihad. Does it matter to them? No because they'll only play 2-4 games there a year. Majority of their games will be at the MCG.
Richmond will play at the MCG 14 times
Interstate teams will be lucky to play 3 games there
We play at Etihad 8 times
Interstate teams will play there 2-5 times
Who has the bigger advantage? It's not even a contest.
Do I prefer Etihad as our home ground over MCG? No.
Do I prefer that then the current arrangement? Absolutely.
Since making Etihad our home ground full time is simply not going to be allowed by the AFL, we have to move as much games to the MCG as possible before Carlton do it.