Fixture Home Ground Advantage

[bluerooster]

Just thinking about the massive advantage Geelong have and was wondering how many teams have won a premiership who had Marvel as home ground. In the last 25 years, 1 team the Western Bulldogs. All the others were Brisbane, Geelong, Sydney, West Coast, Hawthorn, Collingwood. Is this a coincidence or are the margins that fine that a genuine home ground can make the difference. Brisbane and Geelong feature heavily and they especially Geelong have an unbelievable advantage.

 

[ctwenty1]

Geelong absolutely do- their away is predominantly g or marvel

Non-vic have to travel interstate for their away games other than the local rivals

 

[carlton_99]

Carlton play their first genuine home game this season against the Eagles in Round 16 at Marvel. I couldn't believe that when I was told had to go double check. Every game before that is against an MCG tenant at the MCG, a Marvel tenant at Marvel or an interstate team interstate.

 

[JaggasMoves]

Cats have the best home ground advantage and apart from interstate trips, all other away games are a short drive up the highway

Non Victorian clubs have a home ground advantage but thats balanced off when they travel

 

[Rambis]

If you look at the numbers from teams that call Docklands home it is a complete disaster. Finals played, finals won, Spoons and flags. 25 years is enough data. It all points to playing there as being a ticket to the bottom. Once successful clubs go there to die and make up the numbers for the league to work.
No home ground advantage as the opposition play there a lot. No home finals advantage if you are lucky enough to get there. Even a home final is likely to be played on the other teams home ground.

Nobody wants to talk about it. Bring it up and it is seen as "an excuse" ...but the numbers do not lie.

The AFL have to grant any club sharing their home ground with 4 or more clubs and have a 'No home finals' disadvantage combined, an 8pt head start to all seasons and a bigger salary cap.

 

[Bletch]

Think primarily there are three aspects to "home ground advantage":

1. Ground familiarity - i.e. number of times a club plays there vs number of times opposition plays there
1a. Training on ground - significant advantage if a club also trains on the home ground
2. Crowd noise/pressure - undoubtedly has an effect on both players and umpires when crowd overwhelmingly supports one side
3. Travel - distance traveled to get to ground, in particular flights.

Weighting each of these factors is difficult, they're all important.

With interstate teams, it's relatively straight forward. They have significant advantages in all categories over their opposition, except when playing their state rival. Further exception... the northern teams, particularly GWS and GCS do not have the crowd support (yet) to benefit from category 2 as much as other teams. In fact, it's common if they're playing one of the bigger clubs that the opposition support will be greater than their home team support.

With the Victorian teams, it's more complex. The bigger clubs will benefit more from category 2, and the "one home" clubs will benefit more from category 1. Carlton and Essendon in particular suffer from the mix of home games at Marvel and MCG. And it always seems to be that both clubs play their MCG home games against MCG tenants, and their Marvel home games against Marvel tenants, effectively starting at a disadvantage in category 1! This is often misunderstood by interstate team supporters who only look at the Travel factor.

imo, the clubs with the greatest home ground advantages are Collingwood, Richmond, Melbourne, West Coast, Fremantle, Adelaide, Port Adelaide and Geelong (in no particular order). The clubs with the least home ground advantage are Carlton, Essendon, GWS and GCS.

Finally, there is perhaps a fourth factor, which will become more important when Tassie joins the comp - Climate. There are also a few specific factors for individual matches - e.g. Gather round vs SA teams; "sold" home matches to Tassie/NT and elsewhere. But I don't think these things are important as the 3 main factors listed above.

 

[motts]

Felt like Collingwood's home game on Thursday night. I don't think the Carlton chant got up at any stage .