Finals Bye - Keep it or Ditch It

[BK Eaglesfan]

We probably would have won if the Bulldogs had to travel two weeks in a row to Perth without a week off, and if they didn't get some of those players back (though maybe not with the attitude we turned up with), so in a sense you can assign a portion of the blame to the bye. However the bye has achieved it's goal of no mass resting in round 23 and aside from our shocker and North's predictable effort it has produced some great finals so far.

The bulldogs are now in with a genuine shot which they wouldn't have had otherwise (they can thank the bye for getting Hawthorn off an 8 day break instead of a 6 day break for instance). That by itself is pretty exciting.

I'll wait till after the grand final to finalize my opinion, but for now I don't hate the bye, despite it not helping us this time round. We still should have won regardless and a Thursday final would have set us up to go deep.

Which in itself I believe is a good reason for the bye. As Eagles supporters we're never happy when we have to travel in the last game of the season because of the potential for multiple weeks of travel back to back if we happen to end up in away finals. Someone has to come to Perth in the final round and play us or the Dockers, but would have been stiff on the Bulldogs if they'd been required to play at Subiaco in the final round and back up with say a 6 day rest (which after a Sunday final round game could have happened). We would NOT have been happy if that happened to us. If anything the bye took out an inequity that would have heavily favoured us.

 

[Monocle]

The question is why is the 1st bye hated but teams win to get the 2nd bye?

Whilst i get where you are coming from the more appropriate question that needs to be addressed is why was the first bye before the finals was introduced in the first place.

Its my understanding that the AFL introduced it to stop the Fremantle like selection policy in the final round last season.

I would have though a policy that prevented such a repeat would be sufficient.
The AFL just needs a more stringent scrutiny of the final round selections to protect and enforce the integrity of the competition , its a power that they can already mandate.

One of my pet hates is that the AFL makes reactionary decisions on the run and often with little consultation with the Clubs.

 

[ep2018]

Its my understanding that the AFL introduced it to stop the Fremantle like selection policy in the final round last season.

Everyone keeps saying this but honestly North did the same thing and it actually cost Adelaide a home final, or should I say a chance to host a home final. North were in a weird position where in the last round they could have won and played Adelaide at AO but losing meant they had an MCG final in 8th regardless. So they tanked it. Freo tanked the last round but it wouldn't have affected the ladder either way.

 

[flamingEMBERS]

IIRC it was the bookmakers causing the biggest stink as they had the Dockers at $1.12 favourites all the way until the teams were released on Thursday night (the Saints were about $6.00). Obviously once the teams were released the Bookies changed their odds. However they would have lost a lot of money to those who bet on the Saints between Monday and Thursday.

The talk of Fremantle is a smoke screen to the truth that is the bookmakers. Fremantle played that game to win. There is no doubt. Those 9 players that came in would have all been holding on to the glimmer that their form would warrant selection for the finals series if the MC decided to make any changes or any injuries occur. So there is no issue in that they didn't try to win, it's just the outcome didn't matter so they played other players. The only stakeholder this affected was the Bookmakers.

The North one is the same boat. They qualified for finals whilst their position could still alter, the same as above. You can bet your bottom dollar those players were trying to get a game next week. Once again the Bookies are the only losers.

Demitriou is on the board at CrownBet. CrownBet is a major sponsor of the AFL. There is no other reason this bye is in place other than to make sure that the bookies don't lose money.

 

[Scotland]

Ditch it, go old school and have all the games on Friday/Saturday in the last round and don't dick about with Thursday night finals.

Problem that didn't need to be created in the first place solved.