No non-Vic team has defeated a Vic team in the Grand Final without list or salary cap concessions

Apr 13, 2006
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I think we can close this thread, a non vic team has defeated a vic team in the GF (even though Collingwood who are perpetual GF losers) without list or salary cap concessions.

It did take the biggest, richest and most resourced club in the league to do it, and it was only by a kick in the end.
 

WHOME

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Always thought Freo would have won 2013 at even a neutral venue
There should absolutely be a floating GF, and the league can afford it. They turned over $800 million last year, excluding the clubs' own revenue, with 7.5 million people attending games; they're not going to sink if they can't sell an extra 50,000 GF tickets. And all contracts are renegotiable.

That said, West Coast fans in particular seem to have an oversized idea of how much difference Home Ground Advantage makes, probably because West Coast have the league's biggest home & away performance gap. Most GF results are convincing wins; there are only two this century that have been close enough that playing them in the top team's home state might have made a difference (2005 & 2006).

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Always thought Freo would have won 2013 at even a neutral venue

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Honestly while freo didn’t qualify for top billing, the game was close.

Freo fans seems as loud if not louder than the hawks, but the home ground advantage was more the swirly conditions, which the hawks handled better - there had been similar games for them in the lead up.

I heard Fyfe say after they regretted having no kicks on goal in warm up. Cited ‘entertainment’ but surely you arc up at the mcg to get adequate preparation?
 
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That is damning.

West Coast and Adelaide both had solid legs up in the 90s. Brisbane were hocked up when they dominated.

Sydney had COLA in 2012 which aided in player retention.

No one has done it. No one.

The interstate sides are still relatively young in the expanded VFL competition.
But there's already mountains of evidence that home ground is the biggest determinant.

Geelong almost never loses at KP, and sides look unrecognisably poor when they play there. If you go to the ground and observe from up in the stand, you note two things immediately - that it is not an oval, and does not look like any football ground you've seen someone try to play football on before.

You're watching a different brand of footy every week depending on which ground you're at, because teams have to figure out how to work within different dimensions while their opposition already has that down. Umpiring is reactionary, so you get a totally different ride depending on whose supporters are screeching that week. The turnaround in margin from home to away is regularly 10 or 15 goals.

Barely anyone wins in Geelong. Barely anyone wins in Adelaide. And not a single interstate team has won on the MCG on grand final day without list or salary cap concessions.

We're on a five year streak of non-vic teams "mysteriously" putting in absolute stinkers on grand final day. As much as it rubs Victorian nut sacks to think we've simply seen five consecutive inferior club environments exposed on the big day, that is a nonsensical impossibility.

For the game to become truly national and actually fair, the grand final MUST move. We don't need a 100,000 stadium. Bigger events all over the world regularly seat 50 or 60k. It's absolute nonsense that our other stadiums couldn't put on a phenomenal grand final.

It was so ******* disappointing spending all that money to go to a grand final, to see my team struggle with things that it could not address without practice in actual AFL games at that venue, while the other team has learned by playing on it way more at the elite level. To watch the umpires be swayed by the home crowd, and the teams themselves be affected by the home crowd. To see that it is just another away game, where we have to travel, and the opposition doesn't. Where we have to overcome what our opposition doesn't. My team can never bridge those disadvantages. They are systemic.

I think this is going to be the single biggest conversation in the game the next several years, because it is becoming more structurally obvious with every season. Having a sport where every ground is a completely different size and shape, and then having the grand final ALWAYS at one ground that half the competition plays at way more than the rest, with all the other advantages that come with playing at home - is broken.

EDIT: GRAPHIC OF TEAM RECORDS AT THE MCG SINCE 2007:

9/10 Victorian teams have better records than ALL non-Victorian teams at the MCG. Melbourne, with their horrendous past 10 years, are still better than 5/8, and level with Sydney. Think about that for a moment.
Discuss.
Cats slaughtered The Swans in the 2022 grand final....
 
May 3, 2007
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In 1989 we played 1 game at the G in the lead up to the GF compared with the Cats playing 7.
Back then no one gave a s**t.

People these days are pathetic.
Again.... This old chest nut. Didn't your side have players that played in the 1975, 1976, 1978, 1983-89 grand finals?
 
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What are you on about?
We were getting a couple of games a year at the G like the interstate sides (only 1 game that year) do and had to play a team in the GF that had played there 7 times that year!!!
Here's a funny question for you... How many games at the MCG did the dockers get in the 2010 regular season?
 
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What are you on about?
We were getting a couple of games a year at the G like the interstate sides (only 1 game that year) do and had to play a team in the GF that had played there 7 times that year!!!
And here's another thing..... Was the VFL a level playing field in the 1970s and 1980s?

Because it's funny after the 2012 grand final, Hawks fans was angry about the swans COLA
 

Bartel84

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That is damning.

West Coast and Adelaide both had solid legs up in the 90s. Brisbane were hocked up when they dominated.

Sydney had COLA in 2012 which aided in player retention.

No one has done it. No one.

The interstate sides are still relatively young in the expanded VFL competition.
But there's already mountains of evidence that home ground is the biggest determinant.

Geelong almost never loses at KP, and sides look unrecognisably poor when they play there. If you go to the ground and observe from up in the stand, you note two things immediately - that it is not an oval, and does not look like any football ground you've seen someone try to play football on before.

You're watching a different brand of footy every week depending on which ground you're at, because teams have to figure out how to work within different dimensions while their opposition already has that down. Umpiring is reactionary, so you get a totally different ride depending on whose supporters are screeching that week. The turnaround in margin from home to away is regularly 10 or 15 goals.

Barely anyone wins in Geelong. Barely anyone wins in Adelaide. And not a single interstate team has won on the MCG on grand final day without list or salary cap concessions.

We're on a five year streak of non-vic teams "mysteriously" putting in absolute stinkers on grand final day. As much as it rubs Victorian nut sacks to think we've simply seen five consecutive inferior club environments exposed on the big day, that is a nonsensical impossibility.

For the game to become truly national and actually fair, the grand final MUST move. We don't need a 100,000 stadium. Bigger events all over the world regularly seat 50 or 60k. It's absolute nonsense that our other stadiums couldn't put on a phenomenal grand final.

It was so ******* disappointing spending all that money to go to a grand final, to see my team struggle with things that it could not address without practice in actual AFL games at that venue, while the other team has learned by playing on it way more at the elite level. To watch the umpires be swayed by the home crowd, and the teams themselves be affected by the home crowd. To see that it is just another away game, where we have to travel, and the opposition doesn't. Where we have to overcome what our opposition doesn't. My team can never bridge those disadvantages. They are systemic.

I think this is going to be the single biggest conversation in the game the next several years, because it is becoming more structurally obvious with every season. Having a sport where every ground is a completely different size and shape, and then having the grand final ALWAYS at one ground that half the competition plays at way more than the rest, with all the other advantages that come with playing at home - is broken.

EDIT: GRAPHIC OF TEAM RECORDS AT THE MCG SINCE 2007:

9/10 Victorian teams have better records than ALL non-Victorian teams at the MCG. Melbourne, with their horrendous past 10 years, are still better than 5/8, and level with Sydney. Think about that for a moment.
Discuss.
Geelong play a couple of home games at the MCG but generally not much more for anyone to think they get an advantage on GF day.

I mean interstate teams in the 90’s and 00’s did alright in GF’s at the G
 

Bartel84

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Yeah well unfortunately it is in a way.

I will give you a clue. It's the same number of how many AFL premiership medals the legendary Zac Dawson has as a player.
How much different dimension wise is the Optus stadium with the MCG anyway? There doesn’t appear to be a huge difference
 
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And here's another thing..... Was the VFL a level playing field in the 1970s and 1980s?
Not according to the SA/WA wowsers.

Tigers, Dees and North were MCG tenants in the 80s, so a "huge" advantage over the rest.
Because it's funny after the 2012 grand final, Hawks fans was angry about the swans COLA
Yeah, pretty obvious that if one club gets an extra $1m that they are advantaged.

It is why we have salary caps, football spending caps etc.

And seriously, these guys are avg on 350k per year. The smart ones would have been investing in Sydney real estate and making a killing.

Young 18yr draftees only on 150k, poor things, ******* share a house and will be fine. 150k as an 18yr old is great coin
 
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Not according to the SA/WA wowsers.

Tigers, Dees and North were MCG tenants in the 80s, so a "huge" advantage over the rest.

Yeah, pretty obvious that if one club gets an extra $1m that they are advantaged.

It is why we have salary caps, football spending caps etc.

And seriously, these guys are avg on 350k per year. The smart ones would have been investing in Sydney real estate and making a killing.

Young 18yr draftees only on 150k, poor things, ******* share a house and will be fine. 150k as an 18yr old is great coin


The VFL finals system sucked prior to 1972. From 1925-1971, theres 12 teams but only 4 finals spots.

from 1972-1986, it was slightly better. 12 teams and 5 finals spots.

Had the final 5 system started 20-30 years before 1972, I assure you some middle teams and struggling sides would of played more finals.
 
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I believe the MCC has a contract in place with the AFL to host the grand final at the G until 2037.

The only way I can see the grand final being moved, is if a lengthy rebuild of the MCG takes place in the future to drastically increase stadium seating capacity, so it can cope with the very possible and awesome eventuality of 100,000 3-peat watching Richmond members.

1991 is an example of a Grand Final being moved away from the MCG, to Hawthorn's home ground down at Waverley. Probably just a coincidence a too old and too slow Hawthorn used their home deck advantage to smash a rampaging Eagles outfit, who were far and away the best H&A side that year lel.

Look, at the end of the day, 20 years goes by so quickly we will be playing GF's at neutral venues before you know it.
epic post.

it took a world wide pandemic virus to have the afl grand final outside the mcg in 2020 and 2021
 
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