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.