Expansion Should the AFL introduce a Wildcard Weekend?

[The Blue Baggers]

So more or less 12 teams make finals now??? No, you make the 8 in the season or tough luck.... Sick of this nonsense, leave the f****** thing alone.

So 18 teams , 22 games makes sense !!

You are obviously v young , but the 22 rounds came from when we had 12 teams , ie made sense

The AFL has been adding teams without ever reviewing the fixture !!

 

[demondavey]

No Wild card as such, but a simple knockout final-10 system. Still with 9 finals, like now, and still over 4 weeks. It's the best system ever devised.

Week 1
7 v 10
8v 9

Week 2
1st vs lowest placed week one winner (eg 8th)
2nd vs highest placed week one winner(eg 7th)
3 v 6
4 v 5

Week 3
Highest reamining teams vs lowest remaining team (eg 1 v 4)
2nd-highest remaining team vs 2nd-lowest remaining team (eg 2 v 3)

Week 4
Grand Final



It's a fantastic system. It gets rid of the wretched double chances forever. Finals are not about getting second chances for losing - they are about performing on the day


1st and 2nd
- get the advantage of a week off and playing an opponent who played the week before
- all home games until Grand Final

3rd and 4th
- week off, but it's no advantage because they play an opponent who also has a week off
- home in week two, and probably away from home for the Preliminary Final

5th and 6th
- week off, but it's no advantage because they play an opponent who also has a week off
- away games all the way through (unless 7,8,9,10 are the opponent in the prelim)

7th and 8th
- home in week one
- away in week 2 against a rested opponent and away games all the way through.

9th and 10th
- away in week one
- away in week 2 against a rested opponent and away games all the way through.

I like this

 

[demondavey]

No Wild card as such, but a simple knockout final-10 system. Still with 9 finals, like now, and still over 4 weeks. It's the best system ever devised.

Week 1
7 v 10
8v 9

Week 2
1st vs lowest placed week one winner (eg 8th)
2nd vs highest placed week one winner(eg 7th)
3 v 6
4 v 5

Week 3
Highest reamining teams vs lowest remaining team (eg 1 v 4)
2nd-highest remaining team vs 2nd-lowest remaining team (eg 2 v 3)

Week 4
Grand Final



It's a fantastic system. It gets rid of the wretched double chances forever. Finals are not about getting second chances for losing - they are about performing on the day


1st and 2nd
- get the advantage of a week off and playing an opponent who played the week before
- all home games until Grand Final

3rd and 4th
- week off, but it's no advantage because they play an opponent who also has a week off
- home in week two, and probably away from home for the Preliminary Final

5th and 6th
- week off, but it's no advantage because they play an opponent who also has a week off
- away games all the way through (unless 7,8,9,10 are the opponent in the prelim)

7th and 8th
- home in week one
- away in week 2 against a rested opponent and away games all the way through.

9th and 10th
- away in week one
- away in week 2 against a rested opponent and away games all the way through.

So it would work like this. Top 8:

Carlton
North
Geelong
WC
Port
Sydney
Melbourne
Essendon
Richmond
Brisbane

Week 1:

Melbourne v Brisbane (Melbourne)
Essendon v Richmond (Richmond)

Week 2:

Carlton v Richmond (Carlton)
North v Melbourne (Melbourne)
Geelong v Sydney (Geelong)
WC v Port (WC)

Week 3:

Carlton v Melbourne (Melbourne)
Geelong v WC (Geelong)

Week 4:

Melbourne v Geelong (Melbourne)

 

[Furn2]

Who would get the wildcard/s and what would be the criteria ?

Highest scoring team outside the 8 ?

Most recent premier outside the 8 ?

Most successful team of the last 10 years that missed finals ?

Best team of the last 10 rounds ?

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

Well all the dust has settled, by the time we get to the Grand Final, we invariably have the better two teams playing off for the flag. So why change anything?

 

[BigVic]

No. Leave it as it is and scrap th pre-finals bye with a split round a-la-2014.

 

[Furn2]

Yep, the winners of the QFs win the prelims enough that the QFs are not dead rubbers.

 

[Matchu]

Wildcard Round back on AFL's agenda

If nothing else, it keeps fans invested for more of the season. As it stands right now, you can probably write off 4-6 teams from the finals race by the time round 12 rolls around. Adding a wildcard weekend probably extends that to round 14-16.

 

[Pessimistic]

Most years it will be the shittest couple of games ever and will be panned mercilessly by the media who are now promoting it as it gives them media fodder

If anything play the first week of finals as a two leg affair. That compensates for vagaries in the home and away season

 

[kaiserchief13]

NFL has it because it would be unfair to only have 8 teams in the playoffs out of 32. 5th and 6th seeds get in to expand the playoffs to 12/32. Just over 1 in 3 teams. Afl already has 40% of teams make the finals which is more than enough

 

[saints_333]

When are people ever going to get it that if you finish 10th, you finished 10th for a reason??!! If it was St.Kilda my club for example who finished there I would understand why we did and accept it. What's the point of playing on into the finals if you are just going to lose anyway? And don't give me that rubbish that clubs have come from lower down the ladder because the amount of times that has actually happened is very, very small.

But sure, if you want to make the finals series look like a joke, then sure go right ahead.

 

[HTPunter]

* why not got the whole hog and have 6th play 11th and 5th play 12? Wildcard round!! Who cares about the previous 23

 

[HTPunter]

When are people ever going to get it that if you finish 10th, you finished 10th for a reason??!! If it was St.Kilda my club for example who finished there I would understand why we did and accept it. What's the point of playing on into the finals if you are just going to lose anyway? And don't give me that rubbish that clubs have come from lower down the ladder because the amount of times that has actually happened is very, very small.

But sure, if you want to make the finals series look like a joke, then sure go right ahead.

10th place out of 18 teams after 23 rounds and still technically play finals, bizarre the AFL wants to reward this sort of performance.

 

[Underarm]

Do people want 10 win teams making Finals?

Big gaps between 10th and 11th can occur just as often than those same gaps between 8th and 9th.

 

[kreglze]

Ehh have 1 game, 8th v 9th and leave it at that if you must have a 'wildcard'.

 

[Topkent]

Shittest idea ever. 5th-8th are a waste the majority of time already.

The morons don't even understand the concept of a wild card

 

[Billy ray]

Top 7 automatically qualify for top 8 finals series. Out of those left, the two best teams in terms of percentage (not wins/losses) play off for the final 8th spot. That could be 8 v 9 or even 10 v 15.
That's a wildcard round for ya.

Means teams will play out every game through the season and not allow blow outs if they can.

 

[kaiserchief13]

Every team doesn't play each other twice though

 

[basashi]

Shittest idea ever. 5th-8th are a waste the majority of time already.

The morons don't even understand the concept of a wild card

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunction_fallacy

The sequential games of a finals campaign can be a kind of conjunction fallacy for lower ranked teams.

 

[BF Tiger]

Tinkering for the sake of appearing to do something.

 

[M0557]

Think the geniuses at AFL house have been watching too much BASEketball.....



#leavethegamealone

 

[Coaster2012]

devalue 7th and 8th, and make 9th and 10th more important? I don't get it. It's not adding that much excitement since its essentially just making finals 1 week longer. We can't have more teams making the finals than not.

"But the NFL do it."

The NFL also has 32 teams.

If I was making one change to the footy fixture it would be have 1 bye round where no one plays, then get back on with it. I hate this prolonged period of the bye. Just goes forever.

 

[legend166]

Let me repeat this again:

The concept of a 'wildcard' is to account for the vagaries of a conference/division system. It exists so the potential advantages/disadvantages of being in a stronger/weaker conference/division are minimised.

When you have a single ladder, it's not actually possible to have a 'wildcard'. It's just increase the size of the top 8 to a top 10.

The fact that the AFL/media insist on calling this a 'wildcard round' is maddening. It does my head in. The teams would not be "play[ing] off for a place in the finals." They ARE the finals already!

 

[kickazz]

Yes, stop calling it a ******* wild card when it clearly isn't!

Yes, it's a s**t idea!

 

[gingernuts]

Been a bit of talk about the AFL introducing it next year so I'm curious to see what others think.

WG1 - 7th (home) v 10th (away)
WG2 - 8th (home) v 9th (away)

The winner of WG1 plays 6th in the first week of finals and the winner of WG2 plays 5th. This is how it would have looked if it existed over the last five years:

2017 Wildcard Weekend
Friday: WG1 - Essendon (12-10) v Western Bulldogs (11-11) @ MCG/Etihad (Winner plays Sydney @ SCG)
Saturday: WG2 - West Coast (12-10) v Melbourne (12-10) @ Subiaco (Winner plays Port Adelaide @ Adelaide Oval)

2016 Wildcard Weekend
Friday: Western Bulldogs (15-7) v Port Adelaide (10-12) @ MCG/Etihad (Winner plays West Coast @ Subiaco)
Saturday: North Melbourne (12-10) v St Kilda (12-10) @ MCG/Etihad (Winner plays Adelaide @ Adelaide Oval)

2015 Wildcard Weekend
Friday: Adelaide (13-8) v Geelong (11-9-1) @ Adelaide Oval (Winner plays Bulldogs @ MCG/Etihad)
Saturday: North Melbourne (13-9) v Port Adelaide (12-10) @ MCG/Etihad (Winner plays Richmond @ MCG/Etihad)

2014 Wildcard Weekend
Friday: Essendon (12-9-1) v Adelaide (11-11) @ MCG/Etihad (Winner plays North Melbourne @ MCG/Etihad)
Saturday: Richmond (12-10) v West Coast (11-11) @ MCG/Etihad (Winner plays Port Adelaide @ Adelaide Oval)

2013 Wildcard Weekend
Friday: Port Adelaide (12-10) v Adelaide (10-12) @ Football Park (Winner plays Collingwood @ MCG/Etihad)
Saturday: Carlton (11-11) v North Melbourne (10-12) @ MCG/Etihad (Winner plays Richmond @ MCG/Etihad)


Interesting to see what it would look like in reality. The old theory of 11 wins gets you into finals would return (and in some cases 10 wins gets you in) because mathematically we would have more teams playing in the post-home and away competition than those who don't. It would also add two extra significant games to the calendar.

What do you guys think? Should the AFL introduce a Wildcard Weekend next year?

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