You want attacking football?

[smithy]

Dennis Cometti just proposed that an idea to encourage attacking football rather than the crap Hawthorn/Saints dished up last week is to scrap the "points against" on the premiership ladder.
In the event of teams being level on points at the end of the season, the team with the most "points for" will finish higher.

Not a bad idea I reckon.

[Benchwarmer]

An even better idea than the bonus points suggestion I made last night!

Reward those who entertain ... penalise the boring teams!

[redden whites]

Could this favour those sides playing at Telstra dome 11-14 times in a wet year ?or maybe the warmer climates?

[Hondo]

Still favours teams that play on smaller grounds or under-cover at the G ... redden whites is OTM

Imagine missing the finals because you got stuck playing in the rain for the last 3 weeks?

I still say leave it as is because the game will evolve itself out of this trend

[McAlmanac]

Still favours teams that play on smaller grounds or under-cover at the G ... redden whites is OTM

Imagine missing the finals because you got stuck playing in the rain for the last 3 weeks?

I still say leave it as is because the game will evolve itself out of this trend

I wholeheartedly agree (although I'm sure you meant under cover at the Dome ).

[smithy]

Could this favour those sides playing at Telstra dome 11-14 times in a wet year ?or maybe the warmer climates?

Good point.

Wasn't a bad idea from him though.

[doggies4eva]

Could this favour those sides playing at Telstra dome 11-14 times in a wet year ?or maybe the warmer climates?

Or the teams playing on smaller grounds? But I like the idea.

[Benchwarmer]

You could always take a leaf out of the NRL's book and go for points differential (for - against). This system would take into account the advantage that teams regularly playing at the Telstra Basketball Dome and traditionally harder surfaces have and negate it to a degree.

Are we getting warmer?

[scoob]

Talk of advantages of playing in telstra dome etc. are pointless if teams dont play each other home and away every year... what if your teams misses out on the finals this year because they have to play WC twice is that fair... think the talk of advantages is a little overdone IMHO

[Bandit]

From above... - Scoob I agree with what you've put down and benchwarmer - I think your pretty much describing percentage- (current system)

[Hondo]

Talk of advantages of playing in telstra dome etc. are pointless if teams dont play each other home and away every year... what if your teams misses out on the finals this year because they have to play WC twice is that fair... think the talk of advantages is a little overdone IMHO

It's not pointless if people are suggesting granting bonus points for high scoring

But you're right that the fact that teams don't play each other twice is another nail in the coffin of any high-scoring bonus theory

And, yes, overall the fairness of the draw is compromised because it's not 30 rounds

[Hondo]

If we want to tinker with the rules (which I don't) I think we would be better off trying to encourage more attacking footy by rule-changes on the field rather than messing with the premiership table.

Ideas are:

- play on from backward kicks in defensive 50
- off-side rule limiting players that can be in 1 side of the field at one time

[doggies4eva]

From above... - Scoob I agree with what you've put down and benchwarmer - I think your pretty much describing percentage- (current system)

Percentage is different to goal difference. Here is a practical example:

Game 1
Team A 60 points
Team B 40 points

Team A 60% and 20 point advantage

Game 2
Team A 100 points
Team B 70 points

Team A 58% and 30 point advantage

So the higer scoring game gives A a lower % benefit but a higher points difference benefit!

[silent hour]

If we want to tinker with the rules (which I don't) I think we would be better off trying to encourage more attacking footy by rule-changes on the field rather than messing with the premiership table.

Ideas are:

- play on from backward kicks in defensive 50
- off-side rule limiting players that can be in 1 side of the field at one time

the AFL has already played around with rules and look what it has done!

lets leave it to the coaches to overcome the problem that is why they are paid big bucks.

maybe if clubs started recruiting footballers instead of athletes then the game might be better to watch.

[Hondo]

If we want to tinker with the rules (which I don't) I think we would be better off trying to encourage more attacking footy by rule-changes on the field rather than messing with the premiership table.

Ideas are:

- play on from backward kicks in defensive 50
- off-side rule limiting players that can be in 1 side of the field at one time

the AFL has already played around with rules and look what it has done!

lets leave it to the coaches to overcome the problem that is why they are paid big bucks.

maybe if clubs started recruiting footballers instead of athletes then the game might be better to watch.

I agree with you - the game will evolve out of this

The only other comment I will offer is that rule-changes to overcome time-wasting/defensive tactics have happened in the past:

- out of bounds on full free kick
- diving on the ball free kick
- deliberate out of bounds

One thing that the focus on rough play has done is remove the ability of teams to go the 'biff' to slow a game down (or stop a run-on by the opponent) .... Port Magpies were masters of that. You could argue that 'tempo football' is just the latest tactic used by coaches to achieve the same result.

[Psyber]

One thing that the focus on rough play has done is remove the ability of teams to go the 'biff' to slow a game down (or stop a run-on by the opponent) .... Port Magpies were masters of that. You could argue that 'tempo football' is just the latest tactic used by coaches to achieve the same result.

You can say that again - so was Neil Kerley - tempo football is preferable to thuggery!

[Booney]

tempo football is preferable to thuggery!

I am willing to debate that further.

[Macca19]

Im not a big fan of flooding (I dont think anyone is), but people tend to forget when ruckman used to thump the ball continuously over the boundary line at throw ins when they wanted to block the game up. No different really.

As someone said, footy will evolve again.

[Hondo]

I think we can get fixated on the concept of low-scoring games and only see negatives, while forgetting that a low-scoring, close game can be very exciting. Tonight's game of what I have seen is entertaining but only 15 goals to 3/4 time. The beauty of our game is that no two games are the same and on any day, different skills are show-cased.

The last 2 GF's and the 2002 GF Bris v Coll were all intense, very watchable games, yet low-scoring. Hawthorn v St Kilda was not great to watch but you'd have to say that type of game is the exception to the rule and shouldn't be used as a brush to paint every team and every other game.

Port Magpies, Hawthorn in the 80s, West Coast early 90s all won multiple GF's playing close-checking, physical one-on-one footy .... often it's the high scoring teams that get found out when it counts because they don't have good defensive tactics. Doesn't always hold true, but most times in history. We tend to put rose-coloured glasses on the 'good old days' and rubbish current-day games.

Someone on another thread made a good comment .... if it's just goal-kicking you want to watch there's many lower-league games you can go and watch for free.

The biggest anomoly I see on the site is continued references to SANFL games as being examples of how footy should be played .... yet the goal-scoring this season is basically the same as the AFL.

[Benchwarmer]

Interesting to see what happens when you analyse the 2006 ladder with the two alternative methods.

Dennis Commetti's suggestion sees only two teams changing ladder position - Collingwood (2345) jump from 5th to 4th replacing Sydney (2098), with St Kilda (2074) remaining in 6th - all sides had 56 points. Brisbane and North Melbourne both had 28 points but didn't change ladder positions (13th and 14th respectively).

With bonus points for 120+ point totals, the ladder went like this:

1. WEST COAST 68 + 4 + 72
2. ADELAIDE 64 + 7 = 71
5. COLLINGWOOD 56 + 8 = 64
3. FREMANTLE 60 + 3 = 63
6. ST. KILDA 56 + 6 = 62
4. SYDNEY 56 + 2 = 58 (128%)
7. MELBOURNE 54 + 4 = 58 (109%)
8. W BULLDOGS 52 + 5 = 57
9. Richmond 44 + 3 = 47
10. Geelong 42 + 3 = 45
11. Hawthorn 36 + 2 = 38
12. Port Adelaide 32 + 3 = 35
13. Brisbane 28 + 3 = 31
14. North Melbourne 28 + 2 = 30
15. Essendon 14 + 2 = 16
16. Carlton 14 + 0 = 14

Interesting to note that bonus points doesn't seem to affect the shaping of who makes and doesn't make the finals, more a case of who plays in which final.

I stil reckon percentage favours over-cautious (i.e. boring) football and rewards should be given for attractive and open (i.e. high scoring) football.