(09-09-2018, 04:52 AM)Lods link Wrote:But isn't our geographical situation and the team/city make-up one that doesn't suit conferencing.
We cant have a Victorian conference and a Rest of Australia conference. That would mean a league that travels all the time and one that doesn't travel at all.
Split the Victorian teams and it's goodbye to some traditional rivalries.
I just cant see the point to having conferences....but you might have a better understanding of how it would work and could show a makeup.
I went into great detail into how a system could/would work on the old site. I can't access it now.
I'll attempt to recreate a readers digest version for you now.
Firstly, 18 is a $h!t number to work with, but it is possible. 16, or even 20 work much better. Also, currently the 10 vic vs 8 non-vic makeup also causes some problems. But with that in mind, i'll continue.
Secondly, you can have divisions within the conferences to split it down further.
So off the top of my head a breakdown would go something like this.
Don't get caught up in the nomenclature but basically...
2 conferences - AFL vs VFL
2 Divisions in each.
AFL
West
West Coast
Freo
Adelaide
Port Adelaide
North
Brisbane
Gold Coast
Sydney
GWS
VFL
South
Hawthorn
Geelong
North Melbourne
St. Kilda
Melbourne
'East'
Carlton
Collingwood
Essendon
Richmond
Western Bulldogs
So how would the draw work?
If you are in the VFL....
VFL, play your own divisions both home and away. = 8 games*
Play your other division once (mix of both home/away) = 5 games
vs AFL - north 2 home/2 away (1 in each city home/away - alternate every year) = 4 games
vs AFL - west 2 home/2 away (i in each city home/away - alternate every year) = 4 games
TOTAL Games = 21*
If you are in the AFL...
AFL, play your own divisions both home and away = 6 games
Play your other division once (1 in each city home/away - ) = 4 games
vs VFL- East 2 home/3 away = 5 games
vs VFL - South 2 home/3 away = 5 games
TOTAL Games = 20
Now in order to even up the games, you could simply NOT play one team in your division twice, reducing the number by 1. Giving a total of 20.
So thats a breakdown of our slightly odd geographical nature and how you could come up with an even draw. That can be sorted out without the AFL chooses who plays who every year. Its set in stone. If you play Freo at home one year, you play freo away next year. You'd play west coast away first year, home second year.
That way every team plays in every team at least once and plays in each state once a year.
There are other ways for you to do a breakdown of the draw which are more indepth, but thats a relatively simple one.
How you'd do the finals could be done a million different ways from there.
A couple of simple ones would be...
1. You could do it so the divisions and conferences mean absolutely nothing for finals. You just use them to get the fixture sorted. You could use a traditional ladder as we do now.
2. You could completely revamp our finals system and go to a more NFL style system which guarantees 1st spot in each division a finals spot and a home final at then you could choose the best of the rest from there, with either traditional ladder or otherwise.
I could continue, but i think you see the point.