I have written quite a bit over here ("18 Into 22 Wont Fit") about an AFL draw that tries to balance out the playing year to 22 rounds, with teams playing other teams at least once (and 5 other teams at least twice) inside a conference system. That post has grown so long that it might be easier to review how it works with results in a 'trial' on a separate blog post or two (or more).
Case 1:
Conferences and Results:
So now we have our conferences split and the draw organised, here is how the actual conferences work in practice.
I have used excels random number generator to determine each game and score line. The Micrsoft Excel function =RANDBETWEEN(40,150) was used to generate team scores between 40pts and 150pts*, which were plugged in to each game to generate wins, draws and losses.
The conferences, after a full (random) season, then produced the ladders as below, giving conference championships to West Coast, Geelong, and St. Kilda (above the solid red line).
It should be worth noting that in this first example, I have chosen a very basic set of results, where all the conference winners are also the best three teams of the season. This is done to highlight what 'should' happen using this system. I will follow-up later with posts on other possible scenarios as well.
Allocating teams from three conferences into eight finals slots creates issues. For example, the top 3 teams from each conference only gives 9 teams, which is one to many.
I would propose the conference champions get automatic entry into the finals as the first three seeds. The next three teams in each conference (below the solid red line and above the dotted red line) are 'wild card' teams for the finals, with the best 5 of those 9 teams gaining a finals spot.
I have run many iterations with results on this, and have found that on some rare occasions, a fourth placed team in a conference can have;
a) a good enough record to be in a traditional finals 8, and
b) a better record than 2nd or 3rd placed team in other conferences.
...I may even run more iterations to find one and then add it to the blog.
So working with the best 5 from the 3 groups of 2nd to 4th, there are finals berths for
- Melbourne and Collingwood;
- Adelaide, and;
- Hawthorn and Richmond.
Missing out would be Port Adelaide; Carlton and Essendon; and Brisbane, as they have the worst record.
Into The Finals:
In this proposal, all the conference winners are guaranteed a final, and I would also give them a double chance slot (along with the best second-placed team). I think it is important to reward conference champions in this way as it helps give that title meaning and a value to strive for.
So in the example, the top four finalists (with the double chance) would be;
QF 1: West Coast -v- Melbourne
[i.e. best performed conference winner -v- best 'wild-card' team (2nd place finisher in all conferences)].
QF 2: St. Kilda -v- Geelong
[i.e. second best performed conference winner -v- 3rd best conference winner].
For the other four finalists, I would propose that the 9 teams positioned 2nd to 4th in each conference (less the best 2nd place finisher) are then simply ranked by points and percentage, then allocated an Elimination Finals berth (or not finals ranked). This would then rank the remaining finalists from those 9 teams as below:
Coll. (48points, 101%), Hawt. (48p, 100%), Rich (44p, 102%), Adel. (44p, 100%),
So using this system, the two Elimination Finalists would then be;
EF 1: Hawthorn -v- Richmond
[i.e. 3rd best 'wild-card' ranked team -v- 4th best 'wild-card' ranked team].
EF 2: Collingwood -v- Adelaide
[i.e. 2nd best 'wild-card' ranked team -v- 5th best 'wild-card' ranked team].
Setting Up The Next Season:
To set up the next seasons conferences**, I would merge the three conferences back into a single (traditional) AFL ladder as at left, and then separate the teams based on that.
Using the combined ladder completed after the home and away season means the next seasons conferences are based on a balanced results card... i.e two games vs teams from the same conference, and one game vs all other teams. I would not advocate incorporating the results from finals, as they may create imbalance.
So from the left, the next seasons' conferences get built again as per the process;
- 1st, 4th, 7th, 10th, 13th and 16th.
- 2nd, 5th, 8th, 11th, 14th, and 17th.
- 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, and 18th.
This creates the new seasons conferences as at right. In this example, there has been
a) some shuffling of teams into new Conferences,
[i.e. Richmond, Carlton, move into the Barassi Conference from other conferences].
b) stasis of teams in the same conferences.
[i.e. Melbourne Port Adelaide, Western Bulldogs and West Coast have stayed in the Barassi conference, but now has different teams to play against home and away].
Worth noting in this example, there is not as much mixing of teams as there could be. But that is just the nature of the system being reliant on previous seasons ladder position. Indeed there could even be a case where there was no change year-on-year.
* The end points of 40 and 150 are reached as an indication point from calculations on all the scores of AFL games from 2000 to 2011. The average score over that period is 95pts, and +/- 2 standard deviations of that in 38 to 151. I have not added any 'home ground advantage' as I have not adjusted the draw to balance for that. As before, it can be done, but I just haven't the time to go through and complete it. For the record, there is an average 10 point advantage as the home team over that same period.
** As before, in the "18 Into 22 Wont Fit" post, I advocate a season-on-season re-organising of conferences. This is both a way of distributing games among teams (keeping each season fresh and distinct from others before), as well as to dissipate any concerns of either 'strong conferences / weak conferences' or of developing a 'tiered, promotion/relegation' system. If strong conferences or promotion/relegation systems were introduced, I fear it would mark the beginning of the end for some clubs.
Case 1:
Conferences and Results:
So now we have our conferences split and the draw organised, here is how the actual conferences work in practice.
I have used excels random number generator to determine each game and score line. The Micrsoft Excel function =RANDBETWEEN(40,150) was used to generate team scores between 40pts and 150pts*, which were plugged in to each game to generate wins, draws and losses.
The conferences, after a full (random) season, then produced the ladders as below, giving conference championships to West Coast, Geelong, and St. Kilda (above the solid red line).
It should be worth noting that in this first example, I have chosen a very basic set of results, where all the conference winners are also the best three teams of the season. This is done to highlight what 'should' happen using this system. I will follow-up later with posts on other possible scenarios as well.
Allocating teams from three conferences into eight finals slots creates issues. For example, the top 3 teams from each conference only gives 9 teams, which is one to many.
I would propose the conference champions get automatic entry into the finals as the first three seeds. The next three teams in each conference (below the solid red line and above the dotted red line) are 'wild card' teams for the finals, with the best 5 of those 9 teams gaining a finals spot.
I have run many iterations with results on this, and have found that on some rare occasions, a fourth placed team in a conference can have;
a) a good enough record to be in a traditional finals 8, and
b) a better record than 2nd or 3rd placed team in other conferences.
...I may even run more iterations to find one and then add it to the blog.
So working with the best 5 from the 3 groups of 2nd to 4th, there are finals berths for
- Melbourne and Collingwood;
- Adelaide, and;
- Hawthorn and Richmond.
Missing out would be Port Adelaide; Carlton and Essendon; and Brisbane, as they have the worst record.
Into The Finals:
In this proposal, all the conference winners are guaranteed a final, and I would also give them a double chance slot (along with the best second-placed team). I think it is important to reward conference champions in this way as it helps give that title meaning and a value to strive for.
So in the example, the top four finalists (with the double chance) would be;
QF 1: West Coast -v- Melbourne
[i.e. best performed conference winner -v- best 'wild-card' team (2nd place finisher in all conferences)].
QF 2: St. Kilda -v- Geelong
[i.e. second best performed conference winner -v- 3rd best conference winner].
For the other four finalists, I would propose that the 9 teams positioned 2nd to 4th in each conference (less the best 2nd place finisher) are then simply ranked by points and percentage, then allocated an Elimination Finals berth (or not finals ranked). This would then rank the remaining finalists from those 9 teams as below:
Coll. (48points, 101%), Hawt. (48p, 100%), Rich (44p, 102%), Adel. (44p, 100%),
So using this system, the two Elimination Finalists would then be;
EF 1: Hawthorn -v- Richmond
[i.e. 3rd best 'wild-card' ranked team -v- 4th best 'wild-card' ranked team].
EF 2: Collingwood -v- Adelaide
[i.e. 2nd best 'wild-card' ranked team -v- 5th best 'wild-card' ranked team].
Setting Up The Next Season:
To set up the next seasons conferences**, I would merge the three conferences back into a single (traditional) AFL ladder as at left, and then separate the teams based on that.
Using the combined ladder completed after the home and away season means the next seasons conferences are based on a balanced results card... i.e two games vs teams from the same conference, and one game vs all other teams. I would not advocate incorporating the results from finals, as they may create imbalance.So from the left, the next seasons' conferences get built again as per the process;
- 1st, 4th, 7th, 10th, 13th and 16th.
- 2nd, 5th, 8th, 11th, 14th, and 17th.
- 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, and 18th.
This creates the new seasons conferences as at right. In this example, there has been
a) some shuffling of teams into new Conferences,[i.e. Richmond, Carlton, move into the Barassi Conference from other conferences].
b) stasis of teams in the same conferences.
[i.e. Melbourne Port Adelaide, Western Bulldogs and West Coast have stayed in the Barassi conference, but now has different teams to play against home and away].
Worth noting in this example, there is not as much mixing of teams as there could be. But that is just the nature of the system being reliant on previous seasons ladder position. Indeed there could even be a case where there was no change year-on-year.
* The end points of 40 and 150 are reached as an indication point from calculations on all the scores of AFL games from 2000 to 2011. The average score over that period is 95pts, and +/- 2 standard deviations of that in 38 to 151. I have not added any 'home ground advantage' as I have not adjusted the draw to balance for that. As before, it can be done, but I just haven't the time to go through and complete it. For the record, there is an average 10 point advantage as the home team over that same period.
** As before, in the "18 Into 22 Wont Fit" post, I advocate a season-on-season re-organising of conferences. This is both a way of distributing games among teams (keeping each season fresh and distinct from others before), as well as to dissipate any concerns of either 'strong conferences / weak conferences' or of developing a 'tiered, promotion/relegation' system. If strong conferences or promotion/relegation systems were introduced, I fear it would mark the beginning of the end for some clubs.
No comments:
Post a Comment