Six points, Why?

[Adelaide Hawk]

Before the decimal system, a dozen was a nice round number. I have always supposed the officials at the time awarded "half a dozen" points for an accurate kick. Could be wrong though.

 

[madboy]

It's obvious, isn't it?

Six is the number of fingers on your left hand.








Made you look!

 

[grayham]

Originally posted by MarkT

If we can solve this one can we work out why a win is four points?

Easy.
A win is worth 4, and a draw 2, to allow for points penalties to hit ladder positions.
ie a 1 point penalty for some infrigement deemed not as bad as a draw.
a 2 point penalty for something as bad as a draw
a 3 point penalty for something worse than a draw.
and 4 points for a penalty as bad as a win.

Elementary really. Not that its ever happen. The AFL prefer fines (revenue generation).

 

[skilts]

If the combined efforts of the knowledgable people on these boards are unable to conjure an answer to this conundrum, is it possible this is a question without an answer?

If so, does it matter?

 

[MarkT]

I think the AFL should increase a win to 10 points so clubs value winning more.

 

[Ted]

Originally posted by MarkT
I think the AFL should increase a win to 10 points so clubs value winning more.

And a draw should be worth 12 points for each team to encourage closer matches.

 

[TigerCraig]

Originally posted by grayham
Easy.
A win is worth 4, and a draw 2, to allow for points penalties to hit ladder positions.
ie a 1 point penalty for some infrigement deemed not as bad as a draw.
a 2 point penalty for something as bad as a draw
a 3 point penalty for something worse than a draw.
and 4 points for a penalty as bad as a win.

Elementary really. Not that its ever happen. The AFL prefer fines (revenue generation).

How come the SANFL is 2 & 1 ?

 

[SaveFeriss]

Originally posted by Ted
OK, enough speculation, here is the real reason:

When the game first started a goal was a goal, there were no behinds and thus no need to award multiple points for a goal.

As the game developed and tactics became more advanced, some of the teams began to use a strategy known as "flooding", whereby they would push a large number of players into the opponent's forward line to congest the play and make it harder to score. As the use of flooding spread, football became less and less attractive, with fans and journalists alike calling for a way to stop its negative influence on the game.

In response the rules committee of the time issued a verdict that for each goal scored, one point would be awarded for every opposition player standing within 50 yards of the goal line. This area was marked out with the original 50 yard line.

The new rule worked, with flooding disappearing as a strategy until the emergence of Eade more than a century later. To remove the need for a player count after each goal, and with the evolution of set positions for players, it was decided to reward each goal with a fixed total of one point for each of the six defenders. This also allowed for the intoduction of the behind, set at one point.

Simple.

Thats fantastic, and so un-orthodox it has to be correct.

Thanks Ted,

though i feel no one else noticed your post.

 

[Ted]

Originally posted by TigerCraig
How come the SANFL is 2 & 1 ?

South Australians have trouble with big numbers.

 

[MarkT]

Originally posted by TigerCraig
How come the SANFL is 2 & 1 ?

It was always half the competition that the VFL was.

 

[TigerCraig]

 

[Khan]

Ted Ted Ted


Well done , that is so logical I beleive it is correct. Much better than just it was copied from cricket or rugby. Whre did you gleem this truly useless peice of truvia from



Khan

 

[MightyFighting]

Originally posted by Khan
Well done , that is so logical I beleive it is correct. Much better than just it was copied from cricket or rugby. Whre did you gleem this truly useless peice of truvia from

I can tell you where he pulled that "truly useless piece of trivia" out off.

 

[Dogwatcher]

okay, we can't get an answer for the six pointer - except for Ted's magnificent piece of theorising - so how about these questions (also from that West Australian edition).

+ why do golf courses have 18 holes?
+ What is the origin and meaning of the word dux?
+what does the g in g string stand for?
+ where did the word shampoo originate?

 

[SaveFeriss]

Originally posted by Dogwatcher
okay, we can't get an answer for the six pointer - except for Ted's magnificent piece of theorising - so how about these questions (also from that West Australian edition).

+ why do golf courses have 18 holes?
+ What is the origin and meaning of the word dux?
+what does the g in g string stand for?
+ where did the word shampoo originate?

if you're interested in facts like these, i suggest you visit..

http://www.straightdope.com/

You may find some of those Q's have been answered there already.

 

[RedV3x]

Before the decimal system, a dozen was a nice round number. I have always supposed the officials at the time awarded "half a dozen" points for an accurate kick. Could be wrong though.

I have been trying to find the definitive answer to the history of the behind.
Behind posts were used as early as 1860 and as wide as corner posts.
Don't know when behinds were first recorded or when first used as "tiebreakers".
In 1897 the goal was awarded 6 points and a behind was awarded 1 point.
At the time imperial units were used and 12 or the dozen was widely used because 12 is very divisible.
Money was 12 pence to the shilling and 12 schillings to the pound. There were 12 inches to the foot. 6 feet to the fathom.
A dozen was widely used in food and merchandising.
It's no wonder cricket used six as a score boundary score and probably influenced the value of a goal in Australian Football.

 

[JVseven]

As the inventors of Australian Rules Football were cricketers they made a goal worth 6 points, the same as the maximum that can be scored in a cricket shot, 6 runs, excluding over throws.

 

[JackFlash]

Given that the game was developed by cricketers, the 6 points probably followed on from the 6 in cricket.

Introduced as six points for a goal when the VFL began in 1897, probably taken from highest score in cricket (a six) .... makes sense to me.

 

[Xenthor]

Bigfooty was weird in 2004

 

[hcd199]

From The Argus, 12th March 1897:

The committee sought to abolish the behind as a meaningless thing - the league make it a part of the score. Every goal counts six points, every behind one point, so that six behinds are now equal to a goal, and this cannot be considered an exaggeration of their value. After all, the general desire is that the best team should win, and this did not always occur under the old regulation. In scoring, therefore, we now more nearly approach the method of the Rugby game.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/9187855?

Hard to say what the actual rationale of the nascent VFL was, but this theme of "the best team should win" is obviously the general impetus, so it could simply be that six was thought to be the best balance between rewarding accuracy and rewarding general play. That said, I think the "half a dozen" idea had some influence, just as it probably did with cricket; this 1912 article, for example, complains about goals being worth too much ("football is not merely an exhibition of accuracy in goal-kicking") and suggests four points and speaks of three, but doesn't mention five. So it's probably arbitrary, IMO, but influenced by the numbers conventionally thought in at a time when dozens rather than tens would've had more prominence.

 

[BK Eaglesfan]

Article a couple of years ago quotes AFL Historian as not knowing exactly why 6 points was chosen, but running with the mostly likely explanation being the link to cricket.

The six points for a goal and one for a miss is most likely related to cricket scoring, Hutchinson says.

“Cricketers hitting the ball over the fence were rewarded with six runs. So perhaps the cricket minded football administrators might have said: ‘OK, we’ll reward a good shot at goal as a six and we’ll regard a near miss as one’.”

 

[RUNVS]

Bigfooty was weird in 2004

I was in year 10 in 2004. I miss being 16

 

[HighBudget]

It took me way too long to realise that this thread is over 10 years old

 

[Gydafud]

There are 3 paths to score points in AFL. The 2 behind sections of the goal, and the goal itself. 2 of the 3 paths result 1 point, but you have a higher chance of scoring 1 point as there are 2 paths for it. If 2/3rds of the scoring paths equal 2 points, the final 3rd should be 2 points multiplied by the total number of paths (3). 2x3 = 6.

 

[sherb]

Bigfooty was weird in 2004

Are you suggesting it is any less weird now?