A-League: I'm Struggling

Like most football (round-ball) fans, I was happy to see the reforms to the Australian game under Lowy. With the new teams and a fresh start, I joined and became a happy follower (even if from the distant reaches of suburban Tokyo).

But as the seasons work by and wheel away, I cant say I love the competition as much as I should... here is why...

1. The Melbourne Victory. 
The first team in Melbourne, and carrying the state colours. Must be the one team right? ...Well, no.

Picking navy and white is just too easy... teams picking colours on state affiliations is easy... lazy... cliche. 

As much as we love the Navy and white of the Big V...

I prefer this...                                                             ...over this.

And, then of course, navy and white is always linked to the very mortal enemy of the RFC faithful.

So from Day 1, I was never fully 'on-board' with the Victory.

2. The Melbourne Heart.

Seriously... that's the name. You almost lost me completely right there.

But the colours are at least not such an obvious choice on one hand (i.e. state based), but on the other hand, with a team in blue as your local rival, well red is just too easy.

I still cant get behind them though even though I do like the traditional shirts they have for home and away strips.

Home                                                                            Away

In fact, I actually prefer the away kit... very clean, very stylish.

But I can't get behind 'The Heart'. It feels wrong, odd.


So, I am kind of off the A-League...

Help!

Money Can Buy You Wins

... but I'm still not sure if money can buy you love.

Earlier, I posted about how the 2011 season was the worst for blow-out margins in the history of the competition on several indicators.
On looking at the chart further, I could see a period in the past that was similar to the 2011 season.

But first, let's pick -apart the season that was a bit further, as there is some feeling (from AFLHQ and others) that this was inevitable due to the introduction of the Gold Coast.


So It's All About The Suns Then?
As noted in my previous post here, blow-outs were expected by the AFL, as the expansion teams came in and built teams. So using this as a premise, let's allow that "we knew they would happen with Gold Coast etc" point stand on its own, and ignore the other "these are very rare occurrences" comment (from the same post) COMPLETELY ALONE then.

So, taking AD's comment that its all about the Suns, then I have to call bulltish. A simple check of the winners and losers highlights that the Suns may well be the worst, but there were quite a few others that also dished up some rubbish as well.

If you look at the thrashed teams what do we know about their 2011 season.
- Adelaide and Port Adelaide: teams in rebuild mode, profit and financial issues associated with the SANFL licence and ground deal. Both sacked coaches (one in 2010, one in 2011).

- Melbourne and North Melbourne: Perennial Melbourne-based financial misfits, both these teams were belted by Collingwood and Geelong in 2011.

- Fremantle: The financially weaker brother of the WA teams, but perhaps their losses were more injury or travel related, as they had two bad losses in Melbourne.

- Throw in the Richmond and Western Bulldogs results, again from a pair of teams that have had financial crises (and often poor recruiting) too.

- You should disregard the Collingwood result (the Round 24 loss to Geelong), as it was in a game that had little value for them... well, that's their side of the story anyway!

And how many of the above were in receipt of financial assistance from AFLHQ? From the AFL's 2010 report (pdf),
          A total of $7.1 million was paid from the AFL’s Annual Special Distribution
          fund to the following clubs:
          • Western Bulldogs Football Club ($1.7 million)
          • North Melbourne Football Club ($1.4 million)
          • Port Adelaide Football Club ($1.25 million)
          • Melbourne Football Club ($1.0 million)
          • Sydney Swans Football Club ($0.8 million)
          • Carlton Football Club ($0.6 million)
          • Richmond Football Club ($0.4 million)


From the winners perspective, the competitions big spenders and power clubs are there (Collingwood, Geelong, West Coast), joined (some what incongruously) by Melbourne. The grain-of-salt for that would be to consider their big wins were vs. Adelaide, vs. Fremantle and vs. Gold Coast, in what was a very odd season for them.

I think there is a case to be made, that the competition is unbalanced and that the richer stronger clubs have opened up an advantage over others. But in the world of the draft, and salary cap how can this be?

Well, there is still unrestricted off-field spending, which it has been argued has reached a new peak (FoxSports May 4 2011).
So, I put it to you, persistent reader that has gotten this far... that it comes down to spending and club finances as to not only how well your season goes, but also to how well you destroy the on-field opposition and create a blow-out game.


Finances and Poor Performance.
So how can anyone suggest in this day and age (of the salary cap, draft and other equalization schemes) that the finances and spend of clubs is creating disparity?

Looking back at the past year, there are many stories and hours of broadcast time that had been sent out around the off field spend of clubs, the overseas visits, and club facilities and staffing levels.  

Look back at the chart that shows the number of games lost by margins over 60 points. There is another period in AFL history that shows a very similar trend... that period between 1982 and 1996.

Any suggestions as to what happened between 82 and 96?

Here's a potted history right here...

    1981:    South Melbourne, in financial trouble, are relocated to Sydney by the VFL.

    1985:    The first murmurs of financial problems and payment issues at Fitzroy surface.

    1986:    Ranald McDonald resigns from Collingwood, leaving them in debt and at the foot
                 of the table. 

    1988:    Richmond, suffering from rash management and a 'trade war' with other clubs

                 (principally Collingwood) have a huge debt, and create the "Save Our Skins"

                 campaign to fight off death.

    1990:    Footscray fight back against a merger with Fitzroy and survive (even though Ross

                 Oakley wasn't merged into outer space).

    1994:    Further financial troubles around Fitzroy.

    1995:    St. Kilda launch the "save our Saints" campaign.

    1996:    A proposed merger between Melbourne and Hawthorn is rejected, after both
                 teams struggled with debt and low membership levels. 

    1996:    The Fitzroy fight for survival finally ends after 100 seasons, and they 'merge' with 

                 the Brisbane Bears to form the Brisbane Lions.

That period must be the most de-stabilizing to the VFL/AFL competition in its history, with at least eight clubs suffering debt crises at some time (tell me if I missed any or got the years wrong). 

So, let's look at when these blowouts began rising and peaked (see the main chart here), and I will choose the period from 1973 (the year the '10 Year Rule' was introduced and retracted*) until now. Looking at that specific time, and overlaying the troubles above, yields the below chart.

Click to Expand

What is also noticeable is that there is an arrest in the growth of blowout games** from 1996 onward (for about 15 years), which may be related to the end of the turmoil of mergers and financial crises, the declared support of the 16 team structure by AFL HQ, and the generally improved fiscal management of the clubs and league itself.

What I haven't considered so much is exactly what is being paid to players... and whether third party deals or even breaches (known or unknown) are also skewing teams performances.

The Reduced Talent Pool

The main idea behind the Demetriou 'new teams = blowout games' theory is based on the idea that adding new teams reduces the talent pool and lowers the playing standard. This  also, doesn't stack up so clearly

Firstly from the above, adding a new team (and say 40 senior list players) does not necessarily create a higher chance of blow-outs.
- 1987 introduced both the West Coast and Brisbane Bears, and there were less blowouts than the previous 2 seasons.
- 1991 brought Adelaide with less blowouts than the previous season.
- 1995 brought Fremantle into the competition, with less blowouts than 4 of the previous 5 seasons.
Port Adelaide's entry in 1997 also saw the exit (via merger, if you like) of Fitzroy. That season, and the next two, were more even and balanced than 14 of the previous 15 seasons.


Final Proposition
So, I would think that with the above, you could offer a position that clubs financial strengths has an impact on performance. This was manifested in the 80's and 90's via general club financial problems, and in the recent era in the power to spend off-field and in the back rooms, to build on-field strength.
You can buy yourself an AFL premiership, even in the age of the salary cap and draft.

Let me know if I am wrong, or have missed something.


* What a great moment in VFL/AFL history the '10 Year Rule' was. Introduced as a kind of free-agency policy to allow players with 10 (or more) years service to transfer to a club of their choice, usually for an inflated fee. It caused such ructions and player movement that it was rescinded early the following year over concerns about ballooning payments and clubs wage-payment pressures. Additional player payment and recruitment detail here, by Ross Booth (pdf). 


** You could point to seasons 2000 and 2001 as exceptions, but looking at the raw data shows higher 60 and 80 point losses, but only a few losses over 100 points. To me, the dark yellow and red results are the key problem areas.

Blow-out Me Down With A Feather.

The 2011 AFL season was the most lopsided in the history of the competition. The number of blowout games (on most measures by margins), and also by ladder percentage disparity (since 1970, when a 22 week home and away season became the norm). I don't put this down to the start of the Gold Coast Suns, but to that commodity every team, and everyone else, wants more of.

I had tweeted about this during the season, with charts etc, but I felt it also warranted further study and analysis. It may be that I have also found a possible root cause... more on that in the next post though.


The Blow-outs Of The Season.
There was a lot of media chatter about the 2011 season, particularly the blow-out games that have been posted in the back-half of the season. It all really fired up after this result:
        30/7/2011:   Kardinia Park  - Geelong  37. 11. 233  def  Melbourne  7. 5. 47

The aftermath of course brought the downfall of Dean Bailey, and an apparent push by the leading clubs to 'fly the flag' and post huge scores against lowly clubs as well. Which may have been the impetus for these results:

       06/8/2011:   Football Park  - Port Adelaide  3. 3. 21  def by  Collingwood  23. 21. 159

       06/8/2011:   Kardinia Park  - Geelong  29. 14. 188  def  Gold Coast  6. 2. 38 

All of this brought out talk (and tweets) about how blowouts were a big problem for the AFL, which His Andrew-ness said was an over-reaction (ABC News).

         "I just think they are a very rare occurrence," he said .... "We always knew that the

         Gold Coast would have a couple of largish results ... I don't think it's one that requires

         a crisis meeting and hysteria."

          - Andrew Demetriou: Aug 10 2011.

The following week, despite the head-honcho's assurances that massive blow-outs were rare, brought another belting (or big-club-showing-it-could-also-beat-up-a-lowly-club... read that as you will) 
       13/8/2011:   M. C. G.  - Hawthorn  31. 11. 197  def  Port Adelaide  5. 2. 32

So in the space of 3 weeks, the AFL served up the incredibly rare event of 4 blowout matches, for a combined scoreline of    120. 57. 767  -v-  21. 12. 138    Margin:  629 pts

And of these four, only one was a Gold Coast game... so much for His Andrew-ness's logic. Adding to the increasing rarity of these blowouts was the two earlier +120 point games in 2011 as well:

       01/5/2011:   Docklands  - Essendon  31. 11. 197  def  Gold Coast  8. 10. 58

       22/5/2011:   Subiaco  - West Coast  26. 19. 175  def  Western Bulldogs  8. 4. 52

Which benchmarks this season as the worst season EVER for
   - Margins 60 points and over           46 games
   - Margins 100 points and over         10 games (equal with 1991 season)
   - Margins 120 points and over         6 games (equal with 1991 season)
   - Margins 140 points and over         3 games

To put that in perspective, the chart below shows all results with margins of +60 points since 1897 (broken down into 20 point increments)

Click to expand.

And while this year has set a new high-watermark in un-evenness of the competition, the scoring rate (blue line) remains relatively stable at just around 180 pts scored per game.
Also interesting that the 2011 season has run against the trend of the last 10 years, which had been reasonably consistent.

You could also look to the disparity between teams ladder percentages over the years. Since 1970, when the now standard 22 round season was first introduced, 2011 is again the most unbalanced.

Click to expand.

The chart above shows the Standard Deviation of all teams scoring percentages in 2011 to be 31.8, And the net difference between the maximum and minimum teams scoring percentages in 2011 to be 111.4%.

     * NOTE: Removing results of games involving the Gold Coast, adjusts this to a Standard Deviation of 30.4, and
     total difference between the maximum and minimum teams scoring percentages in 2011 to be 104.2%. Both of
     these adjusted figures are still record levels.

The Reaction So Far
So has this sent alarm bells ringing down at AFLHQ?
Well, it possibly triggered an internal season review (read as "crisis meeting" if you like), because His Andrew-ness came out at seasons end on Melbourne radio (MTR) to advise that...

         “What will happen you will see more one side affairs, you will see more one sided
          affairs, and western Sydney and Gold Coast suffering big losses as they build their
          team ... It will probably take three years for a correction to happen into the game
          where we get back to much more even games, get back to the pure draft after next
          year ... But for the next couple of years you will see these things that are skewed
          to blowouts"
          - Andrew Demetriou: Sep 28 2011.

...none of which is any surprise to football followers. Thanks, Andrew, for the concession speech, and lets assume this was written up in the Grand Final Edition "Football Record", on page 31, small print, bottom inside corner under the title "We Were Wrong"...?

Or, maybe not.

And to cap it all off, we can expect more in 2012, as

          "The AFL called a press conference yesterday to announce it was making ''no major
          rule changes'' for next year."
          - Sydney Morning Herald: Oct 12 2011.

 It will be interesting to see what happens further both in the off-season and during 2012.
- Will any post-season analysis and review bring up any root cause, or mirror to the past?
- Will AFLHQ read and consider any external opinion and study?
- Is Andrew planning on buying new curtains for the office and hoping it all goes away?


I will post up some ideas on why I think all this has happened and the link to the dollars later.
And also why I don't think this is a result of the arrival of a new team.

Feel free to offer your theories now.

4b. How Could Conferences Work in Practice.

As before here ("18 Into 22 Wont Fit") and here, here ("4a. How Could Conferences Work in Practice.") is another installment of a season trial run under a three conference system.


Case 2:
Conferences and Results:

Working from the same conferences as you would produce from the 2011 ladder, and adding in random scores, another season and conference tables can be generated, as at right.

In this, more complicated example, conference championships go to Sydney, Carlton, and North Melbourne (above the solid red line).

This, in my proposal, also gives those teams Qualifying Finals berths and the double chance. 

The fourth Qualifying final spot would be allocated to Brisbane, having the best record of the next 9 teams.

The other finalists would then be Melbourne, Western Bulldogs, Richmond and Gold Coast, and missing out on finals in this instance are West Coast, Adelaide, Geelong and St. Kilda.

The interesting point with this scenario is that Carlton (50pts, 103%), with a worse record than Brisbane (52p 103%) and Melbourne (52p, 96%) are guaranteed a Qualifying Finals slot and double chance as conference winners even though there record would see them finish 6th on a traditional AFL table.

This might create a kerfuffle with those teams having better records missing out on the double chance spot, but here is how I see it...

  - Winning the conference and gaining an automatic double chance slot, gives teams more encouragement and reward to gain that title outright. Without the extra carrot to the guaranteed double chance slot, the conference title would carry little value.*1

  - If you are a conference winner with a poor result, or from a poorly performed conference, there is a good chance you will be 'out in straight sets' in the finals anyway.

  

Into The Finals:

As above, the 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: North Melbourne -v- Brisbane
[i.e. best performed conference winner -v- best 'wild-card' team (2nd place finisher in all conferences)].
QF 2: Sydney -v- Carlton
[i.e. second best performed conference winner -v- 3rd best conference winner].

For the other four finalists, ranking 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:
    Melb. (52points, 96%), W.Bulldogs (50p, 110%), Rich (48p, 104%), GCS (48p, 103%),

So using this system, the two Elimination Finalists would then be;
EF 1: W. Bulldogs -v- Richmond
[i.e. 3rd best 'wild-card' ranked team -v- 4th best 'wild-card' ranked team].
EF 2: Melbourne -v- Gold Coast
[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, the full teams list is merged back into a single (traditional) AFL ladder as at left, and then separate the teams based on that.


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.
*2


This creates the new seasons conferences as below.



In this, we still have the three conference winners in different conferences for the next year, but this is not by design, just the quirks of the process. There could be times where two conference winners are in the same group the following year.


*1 Possibly a very simplistic thought, as teams also want to win as many as possible to get a finals slot, but I feel there needs to be some sort of 'aura' about winning the conference. Manufactured or not.


*2 Happy to consider other proposals on allocating teams here... Obviously using this system, the Barassi group is slightly stronger than Robran (all teams theoretically 2 places better, etc). I haven't thought properly about balancing / seeding it too much, so if anyone has any ideas I will gladly consider.

Collingwood: You Still Have This...

I have co-opted someone else's data (via the web) into excel, and now have a list of every VFL/AFL game ever played. Teams, scores and venues. I used this to analyse 'blowout games' as I tweeted about over the last few months ...and may add that analysis onto this blog in the future.

But just as a little look back over all 13959 games, a full ladder of all games ever played (including finals, excluding non-premiership games) gives us the below ladder.

Note that I have had to base this on a 'Match Ratio' basis, as the number of games is imbalanced.

So over the journey, Collingwood hold the title of the team with the best win loss record. Something to help them sleep well at night, I'm sure. 

Also in the above I have grouped teams results as per the below, as ...

      South Melbourne (1897 - 1981) and Sydney (1982 - current)

      Fitzroy (1897 - 1996), Brisbane Lions (1997 - current) and Brisbane Bears (1987 - 1996)

      Footscray (1925 - 1996) and Western Bulldogs (1997 - current)

      North Melbourne (1925 - 1999, 2007 - current) and Kangaroos (1999 - 2007)

The table also roughly mirrors what you could consider the ranking of Melbourne clubs, membership and supporter wise... (debatable point, as it is...) 

    The Big Six:     Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon, Geelong, Richmond, Hawthorn,

    The Others:     South Melbourne/Sydney, Melbourne, Fitzroy

                          Footscray/Western Bulldogs, North Melbourne, St. Kilda

Also an interesting disparity between West Coast and Fremantle in performance, that is not mirrored in Adelaide.

I will pick apart these stats further in future posts.

* For purely academic purposes, a split-out those entities above to make the below table is produced.