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

[Ancient Tiger]

Your team gets screwed too.

You fielded one of the worst sides ever seen in the AFL at KP and Richmond couldn't beat you.

Then they flog you just a few weeks later on their ground, which they play on way more, when you were higher ranked than them.

You guys couldn't deal with hawthorn in the grand final in 2008.

You think they would have beaten you at KP?

LMAO. Obviously someone that looks at raw stats and not at what actually happened.

On that day there were several things that led to a Geelong win.

1. Every single one of the Geelong ins had almost career best games that day.

2. We played our worst football all year apart from the last three quarters against Adelaide in Adelaide and the first three against Freo at the MCG.

3. We lost Caddy late in the first quarter which completely unbalanced the side. At the time we were in front.

Despite all of these things we only lost by 14 points at a ground we rarely play at and even more rarely win at.


It's no wonder we flogged them a few weeks later.

 

[blue harvest]

I said least close to a footy oval, Yous aid it yourself it was started in a paddock, the G has changed dimensions many times over its history. And I was not knocking your beloved MCG as I love it also. I was answering to another poster who said the MCG is the correct size and everyone else has it wrong. Everyone has it actually spot on, there is no correct size for a footy oval. If so then they would all be the same yes?

I never said there is a correct size. I was refuting your claim that it is the least suitable.

 

[Underarm]

Then they flog you just a few weeks later on their ground, which they play on way more, when you were higher ranked than them.

Wasn't a problem for the previous 18 years of Geelong/Richmond matches at the MCG...

 

[Rich01]

It's because teams have actually refined to a science how to play now, so what got lost in the wash when the game was less exacting now determines the result.

Josh Jenkins also got lost.

 

[greatwhiteshark]

I never said there is a correct size. I was refuting your claim that it is the least suitable.

fair enough, was probably poor wording.

 

[Ancient Tiger]

Josh Jenkins also got lost.

I think there still is a search party out to find him!

 

[blue harvest]

So you think the ground dimensions of the MCG today are the same as they were in 1870? The ground dimensions would of changed many times over the years.

Source?

 

[Beer n Skittles]

I said least close to a footy oval, Yous aid it yourself it was started in a paddock, the G has changed dimensions many times over its history. And I was not knocking your beloved MCG as I love it also. I was answering to another poster who said the MCG is the correct size and everyone else has it wrong. Everyone has it actually spot on, there is no correct size for a footy oval. If so then they would all be the same yes?

Of course you can play on whatever sized oval you like. Then you can come to the proper oval for the Grand Final.

Really my point is that the disadvantage highlighted in the OP is surely pretty easy to overcome. Especially in Perth where they're building a new oval anyway. It's going to be MCG sized right?

 

[parmy2balmey]

It was so ******* disappointing spending all that money to go to a grand final, to see my team struggle with wider wings

 

[Pessimistic]

Hang on.
Wasn't the game we know today invented and rules drawn up in Melbourne and played in Richmond Paddock (MCG car park) in 1858?
Here is one of the rules.

The game shall be played within the space of not more than 200 yards wide

And then the next year they started playing on the actual MCG and a few decades later started the comp which is now the AFL.
But somehow it's the least suitable dimensions?

Sheffield rules
wikipedia

1. The kick off from the middle must be a place kick.
2. Kick out must not be more than 25 yards [23 m] out of goal.
3. A fair catch is a catch from any player provided the ball has not touched the ground or has not been thrown from touch and is entitled to a free-kick.
4. Charging is fair in case of a place kick (with the exception of a kick off as soon as a player offers to kick) but he may always draw back unless he has actually touched the ball with his foot.
5. Pushing with the hands is allowed but no hacking or tripping up is fair under any circumstances whatever.
6. No player may be held or pulled over.
7. It is not lawful to take the ball off the ground (except in touch) for any purpose whatever.
8. The ball may be pushed or hit with the hand, but holding the ball except in the case of a free kick is altogether disallowed.
9. A goal must be kicked but not from touch nor by a free kick from a catch.
10. A ball in touch is dead, consequently the side that touches it down must bring it to the edge of the touch and throw it straight out from touch.
11. Each player must provide himself with a red and dark blue flannel cap, one colour to be worn by each side.

In 1861 rouges were introduced into the code.[23] The idea was borrowed from Eton and involved a 4 yards (3.7 m) goal (as opposed to 8 yards (7.3 m) used previously). There were also rouge flags placed an additional 4 yards (3.7 m) each side of the goal. If the ball was kicked between the rouge flags and subsequently touched down the team scored a rouge. If the score was tied at the end of the game then rouges could be used to decide the winner. A version of the arrangement remains in Australian Rules Football.[24]

When the club published its second rule book in 1862 the number of laws had grown to 17.[25] The game of the time could still be a violent one. A match on 29 December between Sheffield and Hallam became known as the Battle of Bramall Lane. An incident occurred when Nathaniel Creswick was being held by Shaw and Waterfall. Accounts differ over subsequent events. The original report stated that Creswick was accidentally punched by Waterfall. This was contested in a letter from the Hallam players that claimed that it was in retaliation for a blow thrown by Nathaniel Creswick. Whatever the cause the result was a general riot, which also involved a number of spectators, after which Waterfall was sent to guard the goal as punishment.[23]

Bramall lane 1933 (hey waddya know they actually managed to evict their bowls club)

 

[darcytiger]

Interstate sides abilities are artificially inflated due to home ground advantages through the H&A and home finals. When the superior team from the other side of the draw beats them they are shocked all of a sudden.

These inferior sides shouldn’t even be as high as they are and are lucky to even be playing in the last day in September

 

[greatwhiteshark]

Interstate sides abilities are artificially inflated due to home ground advantages through the H&A and home finals. When the superior team from the other side of the draw beats them they are shocked all of a sudden.

These inferior sides shouldn’t even be as high as they are and are lucky to even be playing in the last day in September

There is no doubt about that, it also applies to any vic side not travelling outside their state on 11 occasions during the season. Also unrealistic where they would have finished if they had to travel every second week.
We can go back and forth on this stuff all day.

 

[Ron The Bear]

It was so ******* disappointing spending all that money to go to a grand final, to see my team struggle with wider wings while the other team has learned by playing on it way more at the elite level.

Victorian grass is cultivated to make the ball bounce favourably for the locals. And it rained, too. Let's face it, the MCG environment is barely habitable.

 

[B4Bear]

So the smaller Victorian teams that rarely get to play on the hallowed turf (bow down your feral heretics) of the MCG have an advantage do they?

Yeah right.
North Melbourne:
2016
Round 21 Sat 13 Aug 2:10pm Hawks MCG 50657 Loss 57-96 39

2015
Round 9 Sun 31 May 3:20pm Magpies MCG 43452 Loss 95-112
Round 19 Sun 9 Aug 1:10pm Demons MCG 30695 Win 127-92
Elimination Final Sun 13 Sep 3:20pm Tigers MCG 90186 Win 105-88

2014
Round 5 Sat 19 Apr 1:40pm Magpies MCG 57116 Loss 58-93
Round 14 Sun 22 Jun 4:40pm Demons MCG 26615 Win 107-66
Elimination Final Sat 6 Sep 7:15pm Bombers MCG 78559 Win 93-81
Semi Final Fri 12 Sep 7:50pm Cats MCG 65963 Win 98-92


West Coast
2016
Round 2 Sun 3 Apr 3:20pm Hawks MCG 42977 Loss 53-99
Round 17 Sun 17 Jul 1:10pm Blues MCG 26389 Win 82-75
Round 19 Sat 30 Jul 4:35pm Magpies MCG 34929 Loss 72-91

2015
Round 12 Fri 19 Jun 7:50pm Tigers MCG 45178 Win 90-70
Grand Final Sat 3 Oct 2:30pm Hawks MCG 98633 Loss 61-107

2014
Round 2 Sun 30 Mar 3:20pm Demons MCG 22226 Win 123-30
Round 10 Sat 24 May 4:40pm Magpies MCG 53049 Loss 101-109

So North (2-3) play the same amount of home and away games as the Eagles (2-3) at the MCG for the same result over a three year period, and you are being hard done by how? Plus you have the added advantage of a true home ground that is only ever neutral against Freo.

Stop ya whinging and field a better team in the GF if you are lucky/good enough to make the grade.

 

[Seeds]

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 determines everything.

Geelong almost never loses at KP, and sides look completely different when they play there. If you go to the ground and watch a game from high up, you see just how dramatically different the dimensions are from other grounds. It's not an oval.

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. 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 five years in a row now of non-vic teams "mysteriously" putting in absolute stinkers on grand final day. It is not a coincidence.

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 wider wings while the other team has learned by playing on it way more at the elite level. My team can never bridge that disadvantage.

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 game 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 is absolutely insane.

Discuss.

if what you say is true then randomly rotating the grand final across states wont fix the problem assuming the gradn final ground is chosen before we know which teams are competing. Premierships will still be won by randomness of home ground advantage. Its just it wont just be Vic teams benefiting from it. But the bias will still be there.

If you truly believe this is a problem the only solution is a best of three grand final series where the first two are at home grounds of each team and the last one at a neutral ground determined 3 weeks out.

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

I have watched footy for 40 years and it is only in this modern era that supporters believe ground dimensions are a big part of their teams losing, never in the history of the sport at any level have ground dimensions been used as an excuse as they are now. In my opinion it is absolute nonsense.
In the professional era of the game if you think coaches are scratching their heads saying how are we going to deal with the 8m difference on the wing or the 15m difference in length of the ground then seriously you are caught up in a social media bizarro world.
Home ground advantage is alive and well in all sports and always has been but it has very little to do with the dimensions of the ground, it is travel, home crowd, uninterrupted week, familiar surroundings that are the advantage.
Unfortunately for the non Vic sides the game that you win the cup in is played at the MCG which is always going to be an unfamiliar place to play and hence if they play 10 grand finals against Vic sides I reckon they will win 2-3 of them at the most. It is no different with Vic sides playing interstate games or finals, they win a small percentage of them. None of those games you can win the premiership in though.
Yes there is an advantage for a Vic side playing a Non Vic side on Grand Final day, anyone who knows anything about football knows this. But if you believe it to be ground dimensions then you need to talk to your club and let them know they should get some adults to play for them because the players they have if they think ground dimensions are killing them will never win you a flag.

Back in the days of VFL, the ground dimensions of Kardinia Park were never an issue. Being the only non-Melbourne team, the issue was the travel, particularly pre Westgate Bridge days when you had to crawl through the western suburbs to get down to the Cattery. I used to go to most Geelong games in those days, travelling from Geelong to Melbourne and it was horrendous, especially a trip out to Waverley.

The fact of the matter these days is that Geelong has been one of the best sides in the competition since 2004, therefore, the results there are pretty simple.

I saw Geelong cop so awful thrashings at Kardinia. I even remember one particular Hawthorn game we got belted, Blighty put Snr onto Dunstall at one stage to try and get Snr a kick. From memory, Dusntall kicked a lazy dozen for the day.

This very recent phenomenon of calling it 'cheat ground' or whatever is bizarre. Richmond fans in particular seemed to have jumped on this bangwagon. The fact of the matter is that for 35 years, the Tigers have been mostly rubbish, that's why they couldn't win down there. The Western Bulldogs haven't been rubbish too much but whenever they've been better than good, it's mostly been at the same time that Geelong have been better than good.

With the media concentration on it, it's really rubbed off on people and it's like they're looking for excuses about why they've lost even before the game has been played. It's like prime Mike Tyson, his opponents had already lost the fight before they even stepped into the ring until you had Buster Douglas come along who didn't give a s**t and just threw caution to the wind.

 

[raymond35]

This "move the grand final" thing seems to be the current South Australian madness.
The state that gave us Kick a vic and the ridiculous Player retention scheme.
The refusal to join the afl and the insanity of the reaction to Port joining the big league.
There's something seriously wrong with South Australian football people.

 

[bh90210fan]

Interstate sides abilities are artificially inflated due to home ground advantages through the H&A and home finals. When the superior team from the other side of the draw beats them they are shocked all of a sudden.

These inferior sides shouldn’t even be as high as they are and are lucky to even be playing in the last day in September

Have a look at next years fixture for West Coast and Richmond

WC play 10 away games and 12 home games including 2 games against Freo (neutral)

That’s 10 games with home ground advantage and 10 games away with a disadvantage

Richmond play 14 games at the mcg with 4 games against fellow tenants

That’s 10 games with home ground advantage, 5 nuetral games if you include playing Sydney at Etihad and only 7 games with an away disadvantage

Then finals come around and weeks 1 through 3 you could come 8th and play the Saints, Dogs and north at home who only play 2 times each a year at the mcg and then play a interstate side in the gf

How on earth does any team have more advantage than your team

And don’t tell me playing away games at home against Geelong, Carlton and Essendon are neutral because they all stand a much greater chance of beating you at their home grounds as proven by your away record this season

 

[B4Bear]

Have a look at next years fixture for West Coast and Richmond

WC play 10 away games and 12 home games including 2 games against Freo (neutral)

That’s 10 games with home ground advantage and 10 games away with a disadvantage

Richmond play 14 games at the mcg with 4 games against fellow tenants

That’s 10 games with home ground advantage, 5 nuetral games if you include playing Sydney at Etihad and only 7 games with an away disadvantage

Then finals come around and weeks 1 through 3 you could come 8th and play the Saints, Dogs and north at home who only play 2 times each a year at the mcg and then play a interstate side in the gf

How on earth does any team have more advantage than your team

And don’t tell me playing away games at home against Geelong, Carlton and Essendon are neutral because they all stand a much greater chance of beating you at their home grounds as proven by your away record this season

Last time we played the Tigers in a final, 2016, it was at the MCG and we robbed them blind. Well that is what they will tell you.

It just so happens that we were better than them. Using grounds and umpires as an excuse for losing, well, is for losers.

 

[Ron The Bear]

Richmond play 14 games at the mcg with 4 games against fellow tenants

As opposed to, say, 2005-06 when we had 9 MCG games and West Coast beat us there both years.

Over the past five years, Richmond has a 26-21 record away from the MCG. We're just a very good football team.

 

[bh90210fan]

As opposed to, say, 2005-06 when we had 9 MCG games and West Coast beat us there both years.

Over the past five years, Richmond has a 26-21 record away from the MCG. We're just a very good football team.

If you go back in history far enough you can find anomalies for nearly anything but as it stands right now today you have a silver spoon hanging out of your mouth

 

[Tazmania]

-A startup list of 37 compared to the 52 the other VFL teams got
-The WAFL raided in the 2 years prior to us joining

Yeah we got great concessions. But expect the usual half wits to say "state team" etc

By half wits I'm assuming you're including your own coach as per his quote from 2014?

Simpson said. “It was pretty much a state side when they started, and the ‘us versus them’ mentality was definitely part of the motivation.”

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/adam-simpsons-new-state-of-mind-20140410-zqt7i.html

 

[darcytiger]

Have a look at next years fixture for West Coast and Richmond

WC play 10 away games and 12 home games including 2 games against Freo (neutral)

That’s 10 games with home ground advantage and 10 games away with a disadvantage

Richmond play 14 games at the mcg with 4 games against fellow tenants

That’s 10 games with home ground advantage, 5 nuetral games if you include playing Sydney at Etihad and only 7 games with an away disadvantage

Then finals come around and weeks 1 through 3 you could come 8th and play the Saints, Dogs and north at home who only play 2 times each a year at the mcg and then play a interstate side in the gf

How on earth does any team have more advantage than your team

And don’t tell me playing away games at home against Geelong, Carlton and Essendon are neutral because they all stand a much greater chance of beating you at their home grounds as proven by your away record this season

Hmm, you’re right. Should be a good season

 

[Sterge]

Have a look at next years fixture for West Coast and Richmond

WC play 10 away games and 12 home games including 2 games against Freo (neutral)

That’s 10 games with home ground advantage and 10 games away with a disadvantage

Richmond play 14 games at the mcg with 4 games against fellow tenants

That’s 10 games with home ground advantage, 5 nuetral games if you include playing Sydney at Etihad and only 7 games with an away disadvantage

Then finals come around and weeks 1 through 3 you could come 8th and play the Saints, Dogs and north at home who only play 2 times each a year at the mcg and then play a interstate side in the gf

How on earth does any team have more advantage than your team

And don’t tell me playing away games at home against Geelong, Carlton and Essendon are neutral because they all stand a much greater chance of beating you at their home grounds as proven by your away record this season

Did you not just finish a new billion dollar stadium? If the dimensions are not the same as the G then you only have yourselves to blame, same as Geelong put billions into redevelopment but kept the same ground size then complain about playing at the G.

I'm pretty sure Adelaide oval was redeveloped recently as well, the interstate teams want to keep their unique home ground advantage but also complain about playing anywhere else and pretend it's unfair.

 

[Ron The Bear]

If you go back in history far enough you can find anomalies for nearly anything but as it stands right now today you have a silver spoon hanging out of your mouth

You can call it "premiers' privilege".