There seems to be a lot of hullabaloo in the media recently about the finals fixture at the end of the season. Should there be a week off? No week off? What to do if there is a week off? Should we promote women's games? VFL? SANFL? Do we include the awards ceremonies in the week off? And so on...
I can see arguments from all sides, but mostly it seems to boil down to the argument that the season looses momentum with a week off versus the argument that a week off allows the players to refresh and perform at their best in the finals.
And I'm strongly in the latter camp here. A week off does allow the players to refresh and perform at their best for the most important games of the season.
So, in my opinion, if we keep the week off, the next question becomes how to we manage the time between the end of round 23 and week 1 of the finals. Some of these ideas I've mentioned before, but today I wanted to collate them into a more coherent sentiment.
Firstly, get rid of the floating fixture in round 23. This was introduced when there was no week off, and was introduced in order to give the finals teams the chance of a longer break before the finals the following week. But with the week off, all finals sides get well over a week to recover, so the original purpose of the floating fixture is obsolete. Now, the floating fixture just allows the league to massage the TV slots.
At the other end, I prefer the first round of finals to be played Friday night, Saturday arvo, Saturday night, Sunday. Get rid of the Thursday night final in week 1. It's purely a money grab for audiences. Stadium crowds on Sunday games are big. There's also an advantage to having the first final on a Friday night instead of Thursday, which I'll get to later.
In-between, I like the idea of a wildcard weekend. A wildcard weekend means the top 6 sides get a week off, while sides from 7-10 battle it out to progress. It extends the number of teams in finals to 10, and gives us 2 games of AFL on the weekend when there would otherwise be no AFL games.
The format would be something like 7v10 on Friday night and 8v9 on Saturday night. If you introduce a wildcard weekend, you could justify keeping the floating fixture in round 23 so those four teams get a decent break.
Alternatively, you could build it up as 'Wildcard Saturday' and have the games back-to-back on Saturday twilight and Saturday night. This would leave some clear air on Friday and Sunday for other games, which I'll also get to shortly.
The winners of the two wildcard games would then progress to fill the spots against teams 5 and 6, and the last four weeks of the finals would progress as normal. However, the winners of the wildcard weekend would be re-seeded, so the highest ranked winner from wildcard weekend plays the 6th ranked team, and the lowest ranked winner from wildcard weekend plays the 5th ranked team. This preserves the advantage the 5th placed team had over the 6th placed team by finishing higher on the ladder after the 23 regular rounds.
Then, to fill out the weekend, you have a range of options. Personally, I like the idea of a Friday night State of Origin double-header, with an origin game for both the men and women. Obviously, the men's game would be compromised, as only players from the bottom 8 teams would be able to participate. But I think it could be billed as a charity match, and take some of the heat out of the game, reducing the risk of injury. Alternatively, the Ted Whitten charity game could be played on Friday night, with the women's state of origin as a curtain raiser (or vice versa). But the women's state of origin must be fair dinkum. This would mean potentially working with all the state leagues to make sure the women's competitions were all finished before the wildcard weekend so that players were available for it.
Sunday would be made exclusively into a state league bonanza. Double and triple headers in the SANFL, WAFL, and VFL, with coverage on television. It was good on Sunday being able to flick between some of these games. While this does reduce the number of days a state league player would have between playing in say a VFL team and then lining up for their AFL team the following weekend, they may at least get a 5-day break if the first final starts on the Friday night instead of the Thursday night. Alternatively, you could schedule the state league games on the Sunday to involve those teams that had less or no representation in the AFL the following weekend.
As far as the awards season goes, I think you can have most of the ceremonies in the first week leading up to wildcard weekend (AFLPA, AFLCA, Media Awards, Rising Star) and only hold off the All-Australian awards for the week after wildcard weekend. Most of the week after the wildcard weekend can be focused on the four finals coming up, as well as having all the fallout from the wildcard weekend to talk about.
I probably think about this stuff too much to be honest, but can't wait to talk about this with Burnsy when I go to the Swans final THIS WEEKEND!! Oh, did I not mention that??
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