Finals Bye - Keep it or Ditch It

Was the bye a success?

  • Yes

    Votes: 5 14.3%
  • No

    Votes: 22 62.9%
  • Jack Watts

    Votes: 8 22.9%

  • Total voters
    35

salo

Club Legend
Jun 14, 2008
1,125
861
AFL Club
West Coast
apart from having no footy to watch that weekend, i think it's ok.
consider why we have it in the first place - to stop teams fielding their wafl/vfl team in the final h&a rounds (which is probably worse than no footy at all and dangerously close to match-fixing).
 
Sep 8, 2011
10,963
10,889
AFL Club
West Coast
Bye is shithouse the momentum that leads into finals was ruined. I'm not talking about ours, i'm talking about the hype of finals etc.

Teams earn the right to rest players. The sport shouldn't be dictated to by the TAB. The players still play to win especially if they are young and trying to hold a spot. The TAB should be the one adjusting and just releasing odds on Thursday night then.
 

EagleShore

Premiership Player
Feb 25, 2012
3,894
4,234
Perth
AFL Club
West Coast
Worked against us this year - arguably halted our great "momentum", didn't help Lycett, while most likely helping several dogs get up for the game - but I see both benefits and drawbacks in the bye.

Most players who spoke about it said they'd rather the extra bye about round 17/18 (probably because it is around this time top 8 teams engage in a heavy training load in preparation for finals).

Teams earn the right to rest players. The sport shouldn't be dictated to by the TAB. The players still play to win especially if they are young and trying to hold a spot. The TAB should be the one adjusting and just releasing odds on Thursday night then.

Fair point here.

The drawbacks probably outweigh the benefits of the pre-finals bye.
 
Feb 26, 2012
17,057
47,389
Perth
AFL Club
West Coast
No issues with it.

They just need to make all the awards (including Brownlow) over the two week break to stop people getting bored.
Can't see that working really. The Brownlow has always been a place where all the boys get on the beers so I think it's good to have it when most the players can wind down from the season.
 
May 9, 2013
15,754
10,883
AFL Club
West Coast
Can't see that working really. The Brownlow has always been a place where all the boys get on the beers so I think it's good to have it when most the players can wind down from the season.

tbh that doesn't concern me even slightly :p

They have the B+F for that anyway.

having it in the week off also means everyone is in attendance.
 
Definitely screwed us this year. Fans can take the high road and say no excuse but the Bulldogs got a massive benefit from it. If there was no bye they would have had four 5 hour flights in in the space of a week. 20 hours in the air over the course of a week, with injured players vs Eagles in hot form.
 
Sep 3, 2005
34,977
100,769
Adelaide
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West Coast
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Baghdad Bombers
Definitely screwed us this year. Fans can take the high road and say no excuse but the Bulldogs got a massive benefit from it. If there was no bye they would have had four 5 hour flights in in the space of a week. 20 hours in the air over the course of a week, with injured players vs Eagles in hot form.
Although I agree with this, imagine what would've happen against the Hawks at the G the Friday after :oops:
 

arfadunger

Club Legend
Apr 16, 2007
1,003
963
Perth
AFL Club
West Coast
I did buy into the hype about how good the bye was for giving the players a rest, having the best players on the park, no tanking or resting of the players in round 23, etc, etc, but the more I think about it is that I think that it compromises the finals system. All the Vics are happy because the Bulldogs got through, and are in with a real show, however I doubt that they would have won against us if they didn't get all their players back and had to do two trips to Perth in two weeks. Now if we (or say Hawthorn) that had received a similar advantage from the bye then all hell would break lose. One of the components of all sports is that it is a war of attrition and you finish top 4 so that you get the double chance and a potential rest if you win in the first week. I don't see why that should change.
 
I've been to a lot of Thursday night games and I can't remember us winning one. I remember two putrid losses to Richmond where we didn't seem capable of running (sound familiar), the loss to Essendon (Boogate?), the loss to Adelaide earlier this year where we had two good quarters at least, and now this final. Am I missing a win somewhere or do we have issues with preparing for Thursday night games?

They're also a nightmare to get to.

Therefore, I'm opposed to anything that gives the AFL an excuse to stick us with one.
We beat Essendon earlier this year on a Thursday night
But many people expected us to beat them by even more
We roughly matched the line/squiggle predictions though
 
Sep 16, 2006
35,834
35,415
AFL Club
West Coast
I did buy into the hype about how good the bye was for giving the players a rest, having the best players on the park, no tanking or resting of the players in round 23, etc, etc, but the more I think about it is that I think that it compromises the finals system. All the Vics are happy because the Bulldogs got through, and are in with a real show, however I doubt that they would have won against us if they didn't get all their players back and had to do two trips to Perth in two weeks. Now if we (or say Hawthorn) that had received a similar advantage from the bye then all hell would break lose. One of the components of all sports is that it is a war of attrition and you finish top 4 so that you get the double chance and a potential rest if you win in the first week. I don't see why that should change.
If the dogs win the flag this year it is 100% because of the bye.
 
Oct 8, 2007
13,270
8,908
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
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Other Teams
FLO-RIDA , PITBULL ,SEAN PAUL
If the dogs win the flag this year it is 100% because of the bye.

Very harsh thing to say when it would take hard work and a committed effort to. beat 2 Top 4 teams along the way .

The bye helped the Dogs to beat us but can't see how it helped them to beat Hawks .


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app
 

Javelin

All Australian
Jun 6, 2013
849
1,116
AFL Club
West Coast
What would we rather next year, play round 23 on a Sunday afternoon, with a 6 day break going into our first final, or the bye?
They only played on Sunday because they had the bye. And they requested that time slot, too.
 
Aug 12, 2014
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Would it have stopped the tanking/resting we saw last year if there was a bye though? Freo had top spot sewn up and North had to lose to get the 'home' final. I'm sure North and Freo would have still gone into those games as training runs under the same circumstances. As a spectator, it was pretty boring having a week without footy, but overall you want the best footy to be played in finals and the best players on the park so it probably helps with that.
 
Sep 3, 2005
34,977
100,769
Adelaide
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West Coast
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The bye gave me time to fix the fence.
Fixing fences sucks. Next year I wont be fixing any fences.
Get rid of it I say and just have two weeks of full competition byes through out the year.
Round 6 after the Anzac weekend and round 19 after each team has played each other once.

Why teams play each other twice in under 17 weeks has always pissed me off.
 

Javelin

All Australian
Jun 6, 2013
849
1,116
AFL Club
West Coast
With both Geelong and GWS losing (both with 2 weeks off in the last 3 after winning in the 1st week of the finals) I'd expect the bye would be gone by next season.
With the Bulldogs making the GF from 7th, you can be sure the bye will be there again next year. The AFL will simply cite the close game between the Dogs and Giants as justification that it didn't create a disadvantage.
 
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