A harem

Fremantle hasn’t won for six weeks.  Richmond lost six in a row before their latest surge of three consecutive wins.  A month ago Melbourne was humiliated by 186 points.  At the weekend, North Melbourne confirmed its inability to compete against any team above them on the ladder.

Those clubs should not be representing the AFL in the finals.

 

But a proposal announced by the AFL back in March, where ten clubs would contest the finals, would give North, Richmond, Melbourne and Fremantle the chance to go on when the season ends.

The AFL cannot be serious.

For the teams outside the eight, there’s barely pride left for their fans.  To miss the finals is a wasted season.  It might get worse for some.  North is ninth but a loss to Richmond could see them drop to tenth.  The Western Bulldogs play Fremantle, and if either club wins big, North could finish eleventh.

Richmond, on the back of three consecutive victories, could rise from eleventh to ninth if they beat North.  If Melbourne defeats Port Adelaide they could move from twelfth to ninth, provided the Roos and Fremantle lose.

The AFL must be watching the lower rungs intently.  In March, when chief operating officer Gillon McLachlan said the final ten idea was a possibility, he didn’t discuss negative win-loss ratios, preferring to talk up the plan.

Instead of a month, the finals would run five weeks.  In week one, the top six would have a bye while seventh played tenth and eighth played ninth.  The two winners would progress into the current final eight system.

McLachlan said the league had discussed various final ten models but the proposed system had the most support.  ‘If we’re going to change, that’s the one that’s most likely,’ he said.  ‘Nothing else really works.  You preserve a lot of traditions of the present system but expand it a bit.’

McLachlan really was talking things up.  The final eight is 16 years old.  Before the 2000 season the format was changed because there were too many one-sided finals.  The final eight hardly has a lot of traditions.  All it has is more finals. 

Last week on Monday night’s One Week at a Time, Robert Walls uttered an old football cliché, the only constant in football is change.  The cliché is true, as most are, but this season provides proof the AFL shouldn’t expand the finals series.

The clubs vying for ninth, North, Fremantle, Richmond and Melbourne don’t deserve to play finals.  No one seriously believes they could win the premiership.  The competition would become absurd if a club with nine wins and thirteen losses qualifies to play in the qualifying elimination final, or whatever the AFL decided to call it.

It would insult every club in the history of the game who won 12 or 13 matches and missed out on the finals, which routinely happened under the final five system.  There’s no doubt you can’t choose the era, it chooses you, but the era of ten finalists would be laughable.

From 1970 to 1987, 20 clubs won 12 or more games and missed out on September under the final five system.  In 1991, with 15 teams, the AFL increased the number of finalists to six then made another expansion to eight in 1994.

The expansion was unnecessary.  Only three clubs have missed the finals with 12 wins since the inception of the final eight.  Getting to the top eight is still tough, but finishing eighth is hardly a grand achievement.

Twenty years ago finishing eighth was regarded as a bad season.  Think about that for a moment.

Since the final eight was introduced, three clubs have made the finals with ten wins.  Brisbane did it in 1995 and 1997, Essendon in 2009.  Neither won a final.  Neither club deserved the accolades that finals should provide.

Mediocrity was rewarded and though eight other clubs cursed jealously, no one in the industry actually expected Brisbane or Essendon to win.  Getting there was good enough, bragging rights over the bottom half of the eight, we made it, you didn’t.

So what… 

The list below shows each club finishing eighth since 1994 and the number of wins they attained through the season.

	Clubs finishing 8th	Wins	Losses	Draw
1994	Collingwood	12	10
1995	Brisbane	10	12
1996	Hawthorn	11	10	1
1997	Brisbane	10	11	1
1998	Essendon	12	10
1999	Sydney	11	11
2000	Hawthorn*	12	10
2001	Adelaide	12	10
2002	West Coast	11	11
2003	Essendon*	13	9
2004	Essendon*	12	10
2005	Port Adelaide*	11	10	1
2006	Western Bulldogs*	13	9
2007	Adelaide	12	10
2008	Collingwood*	12	10
2009	Essendon	10	11	1
2010	Carlton	11	11
2011	Essendon	11	10	1

 

* Won a final

Of the clubs listed above, only six won a final.  Only Essendon and Collingwood won a premiership within two years while Port played off for the premiership in 2007, two years after finishing eighth.

Finishing eighth and playing a final, in the immediacy, is almost meaningless.  Finishing eighth is not a vast breeding ground for premierships or stepping stone to glory, or any other cliché you want to throw at it.

Seven clubs from the list won 12 games to make the eight.  Eleven wins was enough for another seven.  Of the clubs that won a final, Port Adelaide is the only one to finish eighth with 11 victories. 

The final eight is already needless extravagance.  The AFL can spin the system however they like, talking about opportunity and earning the right, but history shows otherwise, not one meaningful victory late into the finals, not one team winning the grand final from sixth, seventh or eighth.

Each club finishing sixth, seventh or eighth must be aware of the charade the current system provides.  The finals, from the lower rungs of the ladder, are just a ruse.

It’s a fair bet to suggest a club finishing sixth, seventh or eighth will never win the premiership.  Throughout the history of the eight, they’ve never been good enough, which is why the AFL can’t increase the number of finalists to ten. 

Commonsense doesn’t support the change, history doesn’t support it and the fans shouldn’t accept it.

Finals aren’t a privilege, the spot should be earned, not something to stumble into.  As the stats show, clubs finishing sixth, seventh and eighth have never earned anything except another meaningless final, along with the hollow chance to build hype for the following season.

In May this year, Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse said the current system of eight finalists already rewarded mediocrity.  ‘It’s an elite competition and it must be played in an elite manner,’ he said.

Before the weekend, North’s coach Brad Scott talked about beating St Kilda to earn the right to play finals.  Under a final ten, clubs like North would hardly earn the right, not when they can’t beat teams above them, not when they can’t generate respect.

Instead of aiming for 12 wins, which is a decent season, clubs would be gunning for ten, just to say they’ve qualified for the finals, hey, this is now the big easy… 

The AFL, though, does as it will.  As Walls said, the only constant is change, but the AFL doesn’t need a change to parody.

Nine or ten wins has never produced a good season.  Changing the finals format will never change that.

Since the final eight was introduced, just one club, Adelaide in 1998, won the premiership from fifth.  The top four is where the action is.  Until a club proves otherwise and wins the flag from the lower rungs of the eight, there is no feasible reason why more clubs should be rewarded for mediocrity. 

The AFL must ensure the competition remains elite.  The finals must remain exclusive, space to step into, not blunder into.

Eight is already enough.  Ten would become a harem.

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