Nisbett prepared to give up second Derby for fairer draw

[wing it]

Teams tanking for 13th. This year teams from 9-14 had 24 or 28 points at the end of round 16, and were also at least 12 points away from 8th. There's no incentive for them to remain in the top 12. However, under one of the 17-5 model proposals the team finishing 13th would get the 1st overall pick. St Kilda (who finished 9th) were 12th and 0.6% above 13th. They played Melbourne, and the 13th placed side played Essendon. Had that proposed model been in place there would have been a huge incentive for St Kilda to lose that game.

Another of the proposals of the 17-5 is to keep the 18th side picking first. As soon as you get into the 5 part of the fixture all of the games become '8 point games'. Tank 5 games and your 5 rivals for pick 1 get at least 4 points whilst you get none. Lets say Freo wanted pick one and lost to both Essendon and Brisbane. Those two clubs get wary that Freo are gunning for pick 1, and also start tanking the next 3 games.

Meanwhile at the other end in a different season, West Coast are assured top 6, very unlikely to make top 2, have some niggles and rest everyone for away games for 5 rounds. Why would they give up a home final at the risk of injuring their players when history shows they have struggled away in the first week of the finals?

Not only does the system not solve either the resting players or tanking problems, it openly invites teams to do so for greater benefit. Nor does it solve the lack of matches of consequence. Tell me, with the top 8 positions sewn up, who didn't enjoy the last 3 rounds of the year?

The tanking issue is solved by having a bottom 6 lottery. The higher u finish in the bottom 6 the more lottery balls you get. No guarantee of getting pick 1 therefore no point in tanking to finish bottom 6. Done

 

[Feerits Elf]

Gil is slowly becoming more and more fruity

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

The tanking issue is solved by having a bottom 6 lottery. The higher u finish in the bottom 6 the more lottery balls you get. No guarantee of getting pick 1 therefore no point in tanking to finish bottom 6. Done

But you get a better chance at getting pick 1, so there is still incentive to tank. It's just been reduced.

 

[The Passenger]

The 17-5 model is fine as long as the double-up games are as even as possible. The best way IMO to do this is to group each of the 18 teams into 6 groups of 3 from last years ladder (or even base the ladder on two years worth of results, which I think should definitely be done for the draft). Group A: 1st, 2nd, 3rd. Group B: 4th, 5th, 6th .... Group F: 16th, 17th, 18th.

You pick 1 team from each of the 6 groups. And those other 5 teams are the teams you play twice next year. That way every team should have approximately an equal draw based on the previous ladder (or two years ladder as my preference would be). We aren't ever going to go back to 17 rounds, and we aren't going to have 34 rounds. So this is the best compromise IMO.

It's no different to the conference and division systems used in the United States such as the NFL model were you play 3 teams twice, another 10 teams once, and 18 teams you don't play at all. 12 of those 18 teams you can only in a super bowl. I understand the need for division due to the large amounts of travel, but in terms of uneven draws that is far more uneven then our competition.

 

[Woutizmoo]

Isn't that similar to the Premier league in soccer?

Premier league = 20 teams. Home and away each = 38 games. No regroup after x rounds, entire schedule set before season starts. Same same but different.

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[DanWCE]

With 17-5 I think there's good incentive to hang off into the middle bracket to have a real push at winning 5 on the trot going into finals.

With 2/3 home games in the final 5 against the elite teams you are really guaranteed maybe 2 or 3 wins. Almost all the home teams would win. So while the top teams all cancel each other out with home wins, you pants all the middle tier teams and leapfrog the top teams.

Obviously this is purely hypothetical that you are within touch of top 4 whilst remaining just outside that top bracket. It'll be manipulated, that's all there is to it. Which is a shame as it would have merit otherwise.

 

[The Passenger]

That model is s**t and stupid. I'm done if this comes in. **** everyone elses ideas. There is only one solution if you are to have 22 game season. Everyone plays everyone a set amount of times over a set period. You play your 17 games and then the 5 you play in double ups this year won't repeat until you've played the rest.

This potentially compromises it more. You can set out your "three year draw" based on the knowledge you have at the time, but come the third year the strength of those teams could be significantly different - sometimes quicker. No one would have predicted at the end of 2006 we'd be second last at the end of 2008.

You have no flexibility at all in the third year so you can potentially be stuck with some very lopsided fixtures.

 

[Doughboy]

They need to do something.

Over the last 30 years, there is a significant disadvantage to the WA teams with all the travel, which has significantly reduced players career's

There is so much at stake in the game now, they have to come up with a fairer system. Is it 17-5? Dunno

 

[Woutizmoo]

No grand final means no biased victorian bullshit and means every game counts.

Given that victorians are making the rules wont see it happen

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[Miguel Sanchez]

The 17-5 model is fine as long as the double-up games are as even as possible. The best way IMO to do this is to group each of the 18 teams into 6 groups of 3 from last years ladder (or even base the ladder on two years worth of results, which I think should definitely be done for the draft). Group A: 1st, 2nd, 3rd. Group B: 4th, 5th, 6th .... Group F: 16th, 17th, 18th.

You pick 1 team from each of the 6 groups. And those other 5 teams are the teams you play twice next year. That way every team should have approximately an equal draw based on the previous ladder (or two years ladder as my preference would be). We aren't ever going to go back to 17 rounds, and we aren't going to have 34 rounds. So this is the best compromise IMO.

It's no different to the conference and division systems used in the United States such as the NFL model were you play 3 teams twice, another 10 teams once, and 18 teams you don't play at all. 12 of those 18 teams you can only in a super bowl. I understand the need for division due to the large amounts of travel, but in terms of uneven draws that is far more uneven then our competition.

That's pretty close to what they do now, actually. They just weight it slightly differently to give lower teams a supposedly easier draw and top teams a harder draw. While leaving in a bit of flexibility for them to ensure they can still get all their blockbuster games in.

I like your model. But would it mean that if we and Fremantle finished in the same group of three (like in 2015 for example) we wouldn't be able to play each other twice?

 

[The Passenger]

That's pretty close to what they do now, actually. They just weight it slightly differently to give lower teams a supposedly easier draw and top teams a harder draw. While leaving in a bit of flexibility for them to ensure they can still get all their blockbuster games in.

Yes, the model I had is not far off what they have now, but mine would be completely randomised. No preset playing certain teams twice which I really dislike. And no favours for teams down the bottom. The draft is for helping the teams down the bottom. The draw isn't for doing that IMO.

You could even make a song and dance about it each year and televise it like the World Cup groupings.

I like your model. But would it mean that if we and Fremantle finished in the same group of three (like in 2015 for example) we wouldn't be able to play each other twice?

Yes, correct. Which IMO is fine. And it seems Nisbett agrees as well. The money (which we don't need) is nice, and the one less week of travel a year is nice, but IMO not essential.

It's one of the biggest sports a country that is just outside the top ten in the world for GDP. Surely it's time the AFL start backing it's product without having to contrive the draw.

 

[Agent93]

The tanking issue is solved by having a bottom 6 lottery. The higher u finish in the bottom 6 the more lottery balls you get. No guarantee of getting pick 1 therefore no point in tanking to finish bottom 6. Done

So if you finish 13th you still get the best chance for pick 1? That doesn't remove the incentive for teams 9-12 to tank for 13th leading up to rd 18. You finish 12th, you get pick 7, you finish 13th, you get the best odds at pick 1, and there could be less than one percentage point the difference between the two ladder spots as there was this year leading into the crucial round.

 

[wing it]

With 17-5 I think there's good incentive to hang off into the middle bracket to have a real push at winning 5 on the trot going into finals.

With 2/3 home games in the final 5 against the elite teams you are really guaranteed maybe 2 or 3 wins. Almost all the home teams would win. So while the top teams all cancel each other out with home wins, you pants all the middle tier teams and leapfrog the top teams.

Obviously this is purely hypothetical that you are within touch of top 4 whilst remaining just outside that top bracket. It'll be manipulated, that's all there is to it. Which is a shame as it would have merit otherwise.

You can't leapfrog teams in the tier above you.

 

[Scotland]

They should just make it that you play 5 teams twice in year A, then a new 5 teams in year B, then a new 5 teams in year C, then year D starts with the 2 remaining teams plus 3 from year A and so on and so forth. I'm sure the boffins could write an algorithm to do that.

Alternatively they could alternate 9 derbies as yearly double ups which would leave each team with 4 double ups per year.

E.g. We play every team once. There's 17. Then we play Freo again. 18. We play 4 teams twice and there are 16 teams to pick from, so 4 groups of 4. It's doable if not with mental maths.

I don't know why with every compromise that already exists in the AFL that 22 games is set in stone, though. It only made sense with 12 teams and they just kept it that way with 14, 15, 16 to keep the Vic traditionalists happy (except for 1993 when they didn't) and have kept it that way with 17 and 18 teams. I get the TV rights play into it but why is 22 the magic number? Why not 20 or 23 or any other number? Playing 21 or 23 games with 18 teams is no more or less fair than playing 22. 17 teams with a 24 round season would actually work nicely...

 

[Quinz]

You can't leapfrog teams in the tier above you.

Which means you also can't drop down tiers. So if 6th is 3 or 4 games behind the top few teams at the start of the next fixture, if they lose their first few games they just start mass resting players in the leadup to finals, safe knowing they can't fall down the ladder.

It's a terrible system that has many more opportunities for tanking and manipulation than the current system.

Make it a straight 17 game season if you want, the '-5' part of it will not work. Hopefully we won't have to find that out by actually watching it unfold.

 

[wing it]

Which means you also can't drop down tiers. So if 6th is 3 or 4 games behind the top few teams at the start of the next fixture, if they lose their first few games they just start mass resting players in the leadup to finals, safe knowing they can't fall down the ladder.

It's a terrible system that has many more opportunities for tanking and manipulation than the current system.

Make it a straight 17 game season if you want, the '-5' part of it will not work. Hopefully we won't have to find that out by actually watching it unfold.

You might get teams resting players in the final round, which has happened in recent years anyway. But I couldn't see them doing it 3 rounds out from finals. Winning form is good form, and all that.

 

[Woutizmoo]

if we did go to one derby per year - how loose would it be if they sold 50% tickets to dockers and 50% to eagles (symantics yeh i know) imagine how good it would be in stadium

 

[ndot]

the AFL have f*cked up their sport by allowing the draw to evolve into its current state.

its an absolute disgrace and one of the reasons why we see so many teams suffer endless premiership droughts.

money over integrity. that's the AFL's motto.

 

[ep2018]

But you get a better chance at getting pick 1, so there is still incentive to tank. It's just been reduced.

Make the bottom 4/6 receive the same amount of 'balls' then. Yes it might mean the spooner gets pick 4/6, but still.

 

[greatwhiteshark]

the AFL have f*cked up their sport by allowing the draw to evolve into its current state.

its an absolute disgrace and one of the reasons why we see so many teams suffer endless premiership droughts.

money over integrity. that's the AFL's motto.

Could not agree more.
A rolling concurrent fixture is the only way an 18 team comp should run. You play 17 teams and then in the same order just start again and it runs into the following year. Home and then away next time you meet.
They can say whatever they like that fixed so called blockbusters make more money but until they do a rolling fixture they actually have no evidence that fixed blockbusters make the season any more profitable.

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

Yes, the model I had is not far off what they have now, but mine would be completely randomised. No preset playing certain teams twice which I really dislike. And no favours for teams down the bottom. The draft is for helping the teams down the bottom. The draw isn't for doing that IMO.

You could even make a song and dance about it each year and televise it like the World Cup groupings.

Yes, correct. Which IMO is fine. And it seems Nisbett agrees as well. The money (which we don't need) is nice, and the one less week of travel a year is nice, but IMO not essential.

It's one of the biggest sports a country that is just outside the top ten in the world for GDP. Surely it's time the AFL start backing it's product without having to contrive the draw.

I was thinking about this last night. One drawback of your system is that teams don't double up against the teams around them. So the premiers don't double up against 2nd or 3rd and might conceivably not double up against any team higher than 6th. Conversely the wooden spooners may not get to double up against any side lower than 13th.

 

[Agent93]

Could not agree more.
A rolling concurrent fixture is the only way an 18 team comp should run. You play 17 teams and then in the same order just start again and it runs into the following year. Home and then away next time you meet.
They can say whatever they like that fixed so called blockbusters make more money but until they do a rolling fixture they actually have no evidence that fixed blockbusters make the season any more profitable.

Starting the same order again used to happen before the ANZAC clash became a thing. Back in '92 Round 2 is identical to Rd 17 (play 14 teams have 1 bye). It didn't roll over to the next season though.

 

[greatwhiteshark]

Starting the same order again used to happen before the ANZAC clash became a thing. Back in '92 Round 2 is identical to Rd 17 (play 14 teams have 1 bye). It didn't roll over to the next season though.

It does not work unless it keeps running into the next season.

 

[Eagleboy68]

Awesome so more travel for us.

We must have the stupidest people running our club out of all clubs.

Not going to the new stadium...give up another game at subiaco...get Petrie ...ffs

 

[Keys]

We must have the stupidest people running our club out of all clubs.

Possibly because on recent evidence we might have the stupidest people supporting or club out of all clubs