Analysis on the 2010 Draw and how it compares to prior years

[Enrico_Misso]

Home and Away imbalances
Since 1994 we have benefited by having played
- 5 more home games against Adelaide than away games
- 4 more home games against Hawth, North, Port and Richmond than away games
Conversely we have been shafted by having played
- 4 less home games against Coll, Freo and WCE than away games

Night Games
- in 1994 we played one night game
- this grew to 8 by 99
- a massive 14 in 2000
- it then dropped before climbing back to 15, 14, 14 over the last 3 years
- next year it has ballooned out to a massive 16 night games. The most in our history. And it could even be 17 depending on the R22 fixture!

Venues
Docklands - 14 games. One less than this year which was our record.
Football Park - from 2003 to 2008 we were blessed with just 5 trips to Adelaide in 6 years. Now we are paying with 2 trips next year same as this year.
Gabba - we never miss there. 14 trips in 17 years.
Kardinia Park - hopefully our days there are over. 2004 was our last trip.
MCG - AFL no longer schedule us there. A paltry 5 games in 3 years (2008-10) whereas 13 games in the previous 3 years. Shafted !
Subiaco - our one trip in 2009 was too good to be true. Back to our usual 2 trips in 2010, making 11 trips out of a possible 12 since 2005. Shafted!
York Park - no trip to this cesspit in 2010 - yippee !
Carrara - no trip there either (probably the last time we won't play there)

Day/Night by Venue
Docklands - whilst our 14 games there is less than our record 15 in 2009, twelve of them are night games breaking the previous record of 10 in 2009
Football Park - haven't played a day game there since 2003, though the floating R22 game might change that.
Subiaco - 5 day games in a row now
SCG/Homebush - whereas we will now be 5 consecutive night games up there.

6 Day Breaks
As mentioned elsewhere in 2006 we had 11 six day breaks.
After complaints by the club the AFL assured us this would not happen again.
Sure enough it then dropped to 7,5 and 6.
But in 2010 it is back up to 9.
And could be 10 if the R22 game is played on Friday.
TOTALLY Shafted !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Interesting that since 1994 we have had a massive 11 six (or less) day breaks against Collingwood, and 10 against Adelaide and the Dogs. Whilst only 4 six day breaks against Sydney, Carlton and North.

Home/Away runs against Clubs
All of these runs are against the odds (i.e. above average if the draw was totally random or "fair")
Bulldogs - have had an away game against them for 12 consecutive seasons
West Coast - 15 away games in last 17 seasons
Freo - 14 away games out of last 15 seasons
Brisb - 12 away games out of last 14 seasons
Geel - run of 13 years with an away game now followed by 4 years without an away game
Adelaide - 15 home games in last 17 seasons
Carlton - 13 home games in last 16 seasons
Hawth - 14 home games in last 17 seasons
North - 13 home games in last 15 seasons
Port - 12 home games in last 14 seasons
Richmond - 15 home games in last 17 seasons

Over/Under played games against Clubs.
Based on a fair draw where we should play each club 1.47 (22 rounds/15 other clubs) times a season (and other ratios prior to Port, Brisb, Freo, Fitz, Bears).
In the last 17 years we should have played
- Melbourne two MORE times (25.04 v 23 actual games)
- Carlton, Coll, Ess and Hawth one MORE time (25.04 v 24 actual games)
- Geel, North, Rich, WCE and Dogs one LESS time (25.04 v 26 actual games)
The Melbourne discrepancy is made worse in 2010 when again we only play them once.
In the last 5 years we should have played
- Brisb, Geel, Hawth and Melb 1.33 MORE times
- Freo and Dogs 1.67 LESS times

Day of Week
Friday - 6 Fri night games in 2010, up from 3 in 2009 is second only to the 7 we had in 2007
Sunday - 3 Day games. Only in 2007 did we have less with 2.
However this is offset with 4 of those horror twilight zone games.
Why are we being punished with this?

Interstate Games
Ignoring that disgraceful period where we transferred home games to York Park and Carrara, this year we have the MAXIMUM of 6 interstate games.
We have drawn the short straw.
By comparison Collingwood through their grubby little deals with Andrew "bend over for Eddie" Dimwit cannot play more than 4.
Shafted !

Conclusion?
Not sure why people are praising it.
From my point of view it is a shocker.
6 out of 6 "genuine" Interstate trips is a disgrace
4 Twilight games is a disgrace
9 six day breaks (could even be 10) is a disgrace
2 MCG games is a disgrace
In two words - a DISGRACE !

[35...LEGEND]

Home and Away imbalances

York Park - no trip to this cesspit in 2010 - yippee !
![/b]

That would be Aurora Stadium,one of the best surfaces in the country and a great place to watch footy.........cesspit

[35...LEGEND]

Home and Away imbalances


Conclusion?
Not sure why people are praising it.
From my point of view it is a shocker.
6 out of 6 "genuine" Interstate trips is a disgrace agree
4 Twilight games is a disgrace sorry,love the twilights
9 six day breaks (could even be 10) is a disgrace agree,very worrying
2 MCG games is a disgrace agree,4 or 5 would be nice
In two words - a DISGRACE ! overall agree

[Ghost Like]

Wow, what an analysis...great work!

Totally agree with your thoughts. The AFL has a lot to answer for in terms of it's fixturing or is that fiddling or just plain good ol' money & greed manipulation.

No point chest thumping about a salary cap & draft system when the actual competition between teams is so corrupted.

[Cirra]

Interesting how everyone's perception of the Fixture is different.

The AFL is going to pimp out the high drawing sides with more Night Games and considering they are probably trying to get the attendance and veiwing audience up on Twilight games, I'm not surprised we landed 4 of them.
No point in having Melbourne and Freo playing - no one will go. Foxtel will have a lower audience and they won't pay as much fr the next TV rights.

Same goes for the Monday Night. Personally, coming from 3hrs away each weekend, Monday is crap. But I get it - it's for the good of the AFL and good for our cash flow and wider supporter base.

I'm pretty happy with the draw - especcially with who we play. I believe we have been looked after here and think the AFL want us to do well.

My only negatives are the 6 day breaks and the maximun interstate trips.

The 6 day break might be a factor but it will depend quite a bit on our opposition ad their break as well.
Interstate trips - not a personal favourite as I like to go to all the games. But - it is good for our Australian supporters. Besides we need to win anywhere, anytime for our Mental Strength.

[ace]

It not a DRAW, it is a FIXTURE.

DRAWs are drawn.
FIXTUREs are fixed.

This is an AFL fix.

[super dooper]

Home and Away imbalances

York Park - no trip to this cesspit in 2010 - yippee !
![/b]

That would be Aurora Stadium,one of the best surfaces in the country and a great place to watch footy.........cesspit

The fact that we have played pretty ordinarily down there in the past probably has something to do with that opinion...

[saint66au]

So last year no-one was whinging about 6 day breaks...but we had hardly any Fri night games

you cant win

Can someone explain to me how we can have so many Fri night games (and lets face they are the jewel in the fixture crown) without having six day breaks?

[Verdun66]

Wow, what an analysis. I'm in awe of that detail.

Would think it gives our sponsorship guys a BIG opportunity to get some major dollars in. We are ripe for massive sponsorship. Lots of incredible exposure.

This is the area that Nettlefold is from. Let's see him go to work.

[Animal Enclosure]

Great detail but I think it's healthy that most of us looked at the draw & thought "that's great from a business perspective with all the Friday nighters & fewer Sunday twilighters".

It shows that we have a very good side that we're comfortable playing anyone, anytime.

I looked at the interstate games & thought that there's a few great trips away to be had in 2010!

This draw will set us up for another crack at top 2. And IMO that's the most important factor.

[SainterK]

Home and Away imbalances

York Park - no trip to this cesspit in 2010 - yippee !
![/b]

That would be Aurora Stadium,one of the best surfaces in the country and a great place to watch footy.........cesspit

The fact that we have played pretty ordinarily down there in the past probably has something to do with that opinion...

No longer, just ask our "B" team how they liked playing at Aurora...

[Enrico_Misso]

It not a DRAW, it is a FIXTURE.

DRAWs are drawn.
FIXTUREs are fixed.

This is an AFL fix.

Well call me naïve but I still view the draw as something that should be fair.

In my opinion it should be either
- totally random, or
- totally systematic
Anything else is biased and corrupt.

What do I mean by those options?

Totally Random
Each year each side is drawn to play each of the other 15 sides totally randomly, then in the remaining 7 rounds they play the same teams they played in rounds 1 to 7.
That way you might get a good or a bad draw but at least it is purely down to chance, as opposed to the current situation where Collingwood always gets a dream draw.

Totally Systematic
Instead of being random you construct a draw that spans two years.
So over two years there are 44 rounds.
There are 15 other teams, so if you play each of them 3 times that would be 45 games.
So all you need to do is randomly select 8 pairings that will only play each other twice over the two years. So each team over the two years will play every team three times except for one team that they will only play twice (15+15+14=44=2 seasons).
So you then have a two year fixture that is about as fair as you can get.


So under the Random fixture you might get to play the same side twice most years, or only once most years, or have to travel to Brisbane most years etc.
But at least you know that those pieces of bad luck (or good luck) were totally random.
At the moment you know that because of the Collingwood blockbuster factor, local derbies etc. the draw is neither fair or random.

Under the systematic approach there will still be winners and losers.
You might get to play a weak/strong team twice in year 1 but in year 2 of the cycle when you only play them once they have become a strong/weak team.
That is again just good or bad luck, but at least it is random.


The current draw makes us an International disgrace.
It is a contrived system built around maximising attendances and hence cosy little deals between clubs trying to "own" certain dates.

Have you ever tried to describe how our 22 week/16 team draw works to an international sports fan?
Very embarassing!
You can sense them thinking "gee what a bunch of backward hicks these Aussies are".

Can you imagine the English Premier League fixturing so Manchester United had more home than away games, or that they never played at certain venues, or that they always played on a Saturday etc.?
Or the NFL or NBA or the Baseball League coming up with a draw with inbuilt biases?
It just wouldn't happen because they value their credibility.

It is bad enough having a system where we don't all play each other the same number of times each season.
But to then make it even less fair by superimposing all these constraints that
- "these two clubs must always play each other twice"
- "and at this venue on this key date"
- "local derbies"
- "Anzac day", "QB holiday", "Mothers day", "Easter Monday" etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

Makes the whole thing at best a farce.
And at worst is totally corrupt and makes us an International laughing stock.

[Beej]

So last year no-one was whinging about 6 day breaks...but we had hardly any Fri night games

you cant win

Can someone explain to me how we can have so many Fri night games (and lets face they are the jewel in the fixture crown) without having six day breaks?

That's an extremely valid point.

Unless you also play on Friday night the week before, it's impossible.

Therefore, if you play on a Friday night it will generally mean a 6-day break leading up to the game, however, it will generally mean at least an 8-day break the week after (providing you're not playing on Friday again).

[Enrico_Misso]

So last year no-one was whinging about 6 day breaks...but we had hardly any Fri night games

you cant win

Can someone explain to me how we can have so many Fri night games (and lets face they are the jewel in the fixture crown) without having six day breaks?

Saint66au, you imply that you can't have one (Fri nights) without the other (6 day breaks).

I would argue that you can, or at least contain it.

The main problem with our draw is that we have 4 breaks of 9 and 1 of 10 days.
(That is ignoring the bye week break of 12 days).

Our 21 breaks and the 22 days of the week we are playing on are …
Round Day Break Note
1 Saturday
2 Saturday 7
3 Friday 6
4 Sunday 9 1st Fri-Sun
5 Saturday 6
6 Friday 6
7 Monday 10 2nd Fri-Mon
8 Sunday 6
9 Sunday 7
10 Saturday 6
11 Friday 6
12 Sunday 9 3rd Fri-Sun
13 Friday 12 Mid yr break
14 Sunday 9 4th Fri-Sun
15 Saturday 6
16 Saturday 7
17 Friday 6
18 Friday 7
19 Sunday 9 5th Fri-Sun
20 Sunday 7
21 Saturday 6
22 ?? ??



There are 5 occassions when we go from a Fri night game to a Sunday or in one case a Monday game.
That is what is killing us.
Once you play on Sunday/Monday then you are doomed to a 6 day break when they progressively move you back to Saturday and then Friday.

What they should do is put in another constraint so you don’t get a bigger break that 8 days.
Then if you play on Friday, your next game would be either Friday or Saturday - but NOT Sunday/Monday.

So you could sum our draw up as being (roughly) 5 Fri-Sun-Fri cycles.
With two 6 day breaks required to bring us back from Sun to Friday.
If we played more consecutive Fri night games followed by more consecutive Sat games followed by more Sun games,
then the number of Fri-Sun-Fri cycles could be reduced to three whilst still playing the same number of games in each time slot.
Just that the order would be different.
And 3 cycles of Fri-Sun-Fri means 3 cycles x 2 days to gain =6 six day breaks instead of 5 cycles of approx 2 = 9 six day breaks.

Easy.
It just requires another constraint in their linear programming model and a bit of common sense.

[saintspremiers]

2 MCG games and farking 4 farking twilight games

Dimwit you are a Vagina
I hate the FIXture

[saint66au]

Id love to know if every side that gets a lot of Friday night games also cops a fair whack of 6-day breaks..or is it just us??

I suspect the former

Anyone care to compare say..Carltons 2009? They had swag of Fri nights last year

[Fidelis]

The Age published a post draw analysis which claimed that Collingwood were big winners on the basis that they had scored something like 19 free-to-air TV games.

Has anyone seen an equivalent figure for us?

[Enrico_Misso]

8 or 9 on Poxtel
So 13 or 14 free to air

But the good news is that only two of our Interstate games are on Poxtel.
So there are only two times us non Poxtel people will have to find somewhere to watch the coverage - both Perth games - both Sat arvos - both 4:40pm starts our time.

[samoht]

You can also see it this way -

theoretically...
Harder draws could be genetically creating stronger teams for the finals.

that's because ..
The teams that perennially have harder draws and so end up lower on the ladder than they should have also end up picking higher draft picks than they should have - what they lose on the swing they pick up in the final roundabout.

so come the finals you may have 2 teams that may have ended up close on the H&A ladder over several years - but the one that had the harder draws perennially obviously is the stronger team plus it's had the benefit of picking up higher draft picks than it derserved to.

what doesn't kill you makes you stronger as they say.

anyway hopefully we'll have enough depth to rest players during the year if need be (say during 6 day breaks) and develop some other players - which could also hold us in good stead.

[saint66au]

Increasingly theres now 2 considerations to the draw

1. Who we play.

2. When and where we play them.

Supporters seem to care more about point 2 than 1 these days. Havent seen to much discussion here about only one game v Geelong or WBD..its all about 6 day breaks, MCG games and Friday nights.

[samoht]

Collingwood has been relatively mollycoddled year after year with lighter draws .. so they have ended up with a team that finished higher on the H&A ladder this year than it had a right to once again (so it gets a lower draft pick again this year than it needed to improve in relative terms - how is that going to help them ?).

Is it any wonder Collingwood failed in the finals against more deserving teams - teams that got into the finals without the mollycoddling.

[saintnick12]

Increasingly theres now 2 considerations to the draw

1. Who we play.

2. When and where we play them.

Supporters seem to care more about point 2 than 1 these days. Havent seen to much discussion here about only one game v Geelong or WBD..its all about 6 day breaks, MCG games and Friday nights.

Agreed. Most of the media speculation is that we have a relatively soft draw due to the number of times we play other top 8 teams from last year. Collingwood is deemed to have a good draw if you a supporter, but a bad draw due to the fact that they play so many blockbuster games against other top 8 team.

I don't think the club is that worried about 6 day breaks per se....they will tell you that is modern footy. The issue is the 6 day breaks back to back. which looks like it happens twice so far - both before the mid year break which in the scheme of things is not too bad I don't think. Looks like its possible we may get a back to back six day break going into the finals which is a concern...however, if we finish top two which would be our aim, the draw for round 22 will be done in our favour...a benefit of the floating round 22 fixture.

My only complaint in the draw would be the number of interstate games...it would be good to have one less...but not selling one this year, they were probably always going to give us an away game to replace it. I think the draw is good in terms of the teams we play and the times we play them. Of course, it depends on where you live and your other commitments are. With junior sport on sundays, the twilight games actually give me a chance to get there, where as the sunday 1 or 2 pm games were difficult to get to. This year we went late a couple of times on the sunday, and the 1.10 one I went without my 14 year old and my ptr took him to his game. So personally the friday night games and twilight games are great for us, as junior sport games will be later again this year making the 1 and 2 pm sunday games impossible, but the 4.40 ones possible, but rushed. But a few years ago, when he played sport on a friday night, I would have been moaning that we had too many friday night games. As I said, it depends on our own commitments and how it suits us.
Ultimately we all want to be able to watch or get to as many games as possible, and of course want the draw that is most favourable to the club. I believe the current one suits the club quite well in that regard. Certainly haven't heard any moaning from the club, unlike other clubs.

[samoht]

Ultimately we all want the draw that is most favourable to the club. I believe the current one suits the club quite well in that regard. Certainly haven't heard any moaning from the club, unlike other clubs.

It could be argued that the harder draws relatively speaking are the most favourable draws to the club - as the harder draws could engineer a stronger team over time.

Am i the only one who sees this ?

[saintnick12]

Ultimately we all want the draw that is most favourable to the club. I believe the current one suits the club quite well in that regard. Certainly haven't heard any moaning from the club, unlike other clubs.

It could be argued that the harder draws relatively speaking are the most favourable draws to the club - as the harder draws could engineer a stronger team over time.

Am i the only one who sees this ?

That wasn't my actual quote.
But when I mentioned " and of course want the draw that is most favourable to the club" - I meant from the clubs point of view...and who knows what they view as most favouable. But it seems to me they are happy with it.

[samoht]

Saintnick12 .. I didn't mean to misquote you and you're right we haven't heard any moaning from our club.

But let's say for the sake of an argument (and i put this to everyone) that St Kilda is relatively advantaged each and every year with easier draws ..

would everyone be happy with that ?

I can tell you I wouldn't be - as i see that it will progressively weaken our team a little every year as we end up a little higher on the ladder than we should each year and keep getting lower draft picks than we need each year to improve on a relative basis.

i would be happier with a harder draw each and every year as it will do the opposite... make us relatively stronger (to a small degree each year, via a higher draft pick each year which will accumulate and could make a real difference and benefit us over time).

Regardless of the above ..in the short term it'll obviously be good to get an easier draw in the year you're a red hot premiership chance... so it's fair enough to want/hope for an easier draw this year.