Splitting AFL into two divisions would make for a more exciting competition, writes Mick Malthouse
IMAGINE your team not only playing for a premiership, but to avoid relegation. Two divisions would mean more exciting games, for longer — and fix problems with free agency, writes Mick Malthouse.
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I’VE BEEN out of coaching for three years now, and watching footy from the sidelines has given me a fresh perspective on the game.
I think the supporters need more. They need to be able to feel involved for an entire season. Not entering Round 8 when their club is 0-7, dead in the water, and facing another struggling club in a match that will have no impact on the top half of the ladder.
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So I have a plan, and it’s pretty radical, but I really think it could work.
I propose we form two divisions among the 18 clubs.
The first division would have 10 sides.
They would still play 22 games, which would mean opposing each other twice, plus four more matches.
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There would still be a top eight to play finals.
The crux is that the bottom two clubs would be relegated at season’s end to the second division.
Division 2, therefore, would have eight teams.
They would meet each other three times.
In the 22nd and final round of the season only the top four teams would play off: 1 v 4 and 2 v 3, with the winners to be promoted into Division 1. Simple!
Well, simple compared to the English Football League system, which has a host of divisions below the Premier League, with promotion and relegation occurring between them all.
The current draft system could also be modified to give the first round picks entirely to Division 2.
Then round two could also start at the bottom of the second division, up to the top of Division 1.
A follow-on effect may be with free agency, where I see less chance of players leaving struggling clubs for success elsewhere, when the elsewhere is unknown.
The club component of the divisions will change annually.
Right now, free agency is making the league a two-tiered, top-heavy competition anyway.
The top clubs are getting stronger, and the bottom clubs aren’t.
Good players do not leave good clubs to play for bottom clubs, but top players at bottom clubs are always looking for greener pastures above them.
I, for one, would love to see the top sides of our competition playing each other twice, every season. It would be fierce, riveting football.
And I imagine the crowds would flock to see it, too.
Not only would they be playing for the premiership cup — still the ultimate goal — but teams would also be playing to avoid relegation.
With so much at stake, in a more balanced pool, there’ll be far fewer lopsided results.
Things would be far more even in the second division also.
Instead of getting smashed every week, each team would have a better chance of finishing higher up the ladder and gaining promotion.
And it would give their supporters something to barrack for across 22 rounds.
If a radical plan like this reduces the number of players moving to top clubs, and gives anguished supporters hope for a strong finish to the season, then call me silly, but I’d like to see that.
GET OUT OF QUEENSLAND, INTO TASSIE
THE thing is, our league isn’t even. It’s a bit like George Orwell’s Animal Farm: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
The AFL continues to pump money into two non-AFL dominant states, across four teams — Sydney, GWS, Brisbane and the Suns..
In the past seven years, since Gold Coast’s debut in 2011, two or more of those clubs have finished in the bottom four six times.
For all the talent, handouts and concessions given to the Suns, is 12th really the best they can do?
Gary Ablett was lured there with promises and big money, and now he’s back home, without having even left a legacy at Gold Coast.
Dion Prestia, a No. 9 draft pick, was traded to Richmond in 2016, where he now owns a premiership medallion.
Current Suns captain Tom Lynch is being courted by at least three of the big clubs, where he is, let’s face it, more likely to play finals.
He will leave, I’m certain of it, despite the AFL’s inducements to make him stay.
Former Giant Adam Treloar has boosted the Magpies stocks, just as Caleb Marchbank has at Carlton.
Tom Boyd led the Bulldogs to a premiership after being lured from GWS.
The player drain won’t end there — Jeremy Cameron, Toby Greene and Dylan Shiel are the next GWS targets.
Free agency is on the verge of killing these clubs, one young talented player at a time.
The AFL has bitten off more than it can chew with four clubs in NRL territory.
Let’s not forget its shallow attempt to break into the rugby league market with the appointment of Karmichael Hunt at the Suns, and Israel Folau at GWS.
They were short-lived disasters.
It is four clubs competing for a virtually non-existent supporter base and minimal sponsorship opportunities.
Remember the crowd number — 14,865 people — at the Giants’ home semi-final against West Coast Eagles last year? It was the lowest AFL finals crowd in 100 years.
Next-door almost 42,000 fans watched an NRL semi-final.
Compare that to the 95,000-plus crowd that watched Richmond and Geelong at the MCG the weekend before.
There is an under-utilised AFL dominant state in our country that deserves a team in the league, and that is Tasmania.
For all the money the AFL spends to keep the Suns afloat in a transient, holiday city — where no professional sporting code has ever faired well — they could put to better use by moving them south and forming the Tasmanian Suns.
The crowds would be bigger, the support greater, and by getting Tasmanian football back on track, another talent pool would re-emerge for all the clubs’ takings.
And it’s needed. Because suddenly there is a dearth of young AFL talent across the country. We are losing kids to other sporting codes and the result is that there are not enough quality players to supply 18 teams.
Fewer players were drafted last year than in previous times.
Clubs are topping up their lists with mature-aged players, and holding onto senior players for longer. It is a worry.
Heading into this round, Brisbane was 17th and Gold Coast 13th. Aside from the Lions’ dominant era in the early 2000s, development of AFL football in Queensland has stalled.
It is, however, already established in Tasmania, and it’s time to make the most of it.
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