The godfather of AFL finals systems Ken McIntyre and the motives behind September expansion

As a ‘Wildcard Weekend’ looms with divided opinions, SHANNON GILL explores the motives and mechanics of the AFL’s previous finals expansions and finds one man in the middle.

Could we see a ‘Wildcard Weekend’ or ‘Final 10’ be part of September action soon? Picture: Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images

Battlelines have been drawn; you’re either a Wildcard Weekend believer, or you’re vehemently opposed.

Never mind the fact that there’s nothing ‘wild’ about the concept – simply a Final Ten rather than a Final Eight – it’s become footy’s own version of culture wars.

Do you worship at the altar of American sports or do you revile at the thought of the Americanisation of the Australian game?

Yet this is a story that has been told many times before. Whether it be a final five, six or eight, there have always been cynics and the league has always been painted as the money-hungry ogre.

The patron saint of final series reforms Ken McIntyre may have passed away 20 years ago, but somewhere he would be rolling his eyes knowingly.

Ken McIntyre at the age 89 in 1999 as his decades of finals systems were phased out.

FINAL FOUR

To try to explain the bonkers VFL finals series systems that were in place from 1897 through to 1930 is almost impossible in today’s context without a stiff drink or some form of hallucinogenic.

There were round robins, ‘sectional games’ and then a system that was in place for the best of three decades called ‘the Argus system’.

It consisted of two semi finals, a ‘final’ and then the opportunity for the minor premiers to challenge the ‘final’ winner in a ‘Grand Final’ (if it wasn’t them) to determine the Premiers.

This hit breaking point in 1929 when it was suspected that the undefeated minor premier in Collingwood had ‘played dead’ in a semi final to earn extra revenue through playing an extra final.

That all changed ahead of the 1931 season when Richmond secretary Percy Page introduced a new ‘Final Four’ system to VFL directors who promptly voted in the system that is still in use by some sports leagues today.

Ken McIntyre created the final four system in his formative years. Picture: The Geelong College

It was named, for a long time, the Page System, yet there is a twist. The doyen of football writers Mike Sheahan heard the story, passed down through the decades.

“Percy Page championed the system but the idea belonged to Ken McIntyre,” he tells CODE Sports.

Pulling out some notes he reads from a clipping of The Sporting Globe from the era.

“Percy says the idea came from a young fellow at Geelong named McIntyre.”

At the time McIntyre was a twenty-year-old university student from Geelong with a keen interest in mathematics and football, yet for years the Final Four was credited to Page.

“I don’t think Page did it with any devious intent though “ Sheahan says.

“My memory of McIntyre is that he was quite a genteel individual and it must have weighed upon him for a long time. After a while he said ‘I need to correct this’.”

Eventually at some point in the 1960s McIntyre’s name was added to the official name of the finals system and it became known as the Page-McIntyre system, as it still reads in AFL records today.

VERDICT: A noble act of integrity mixed with common sense 

FINAL FIVE

By the time McIntyre was credited with the system he had developed a diverse and lauded career as a teacher, lawyer and historian. He also served as the mayor of Box Hill for a period of time.

News report on the possible mid-season introduction of the final five in 1971.

So by 1971 when the VFL were looking at expanding their final series for the first time in 40 years McIntyre was tapped to create it.

His solution of the final five added an extra week to the final four by creating a virtual playoff for 2nd place (Qualifying Final) and fourth place (Elimination Final).

The unusual thing was that the 1971 season was already underway with a final four in mid-April when the league directors took a vote as to whether they would expand to a five that season.

Some cynics would say nothing’s changed, but ultimately it was a no to changing the finals goalposts mid-season. Instead it was brought in for 1972.

Two extra finals were clearly a financial windfall for the league yet there was also a strategic advantage.

Whereas the final four was one final per week for four weeks, the final five required multiple games to be played on the same day and therefore reason to use the league’s newly built VFL Park.

Not only did a better financial return come from playing at its own ground, it was also a long-play to break the stranglehold of the MCG and establish VFL Park as the league’s true home for finals.

VERDICT: A logical, and defendable, strategic move. Mixed with a cash grab. 

FINAL SIX

A string of one-sided grand finals in the 1980s led to the VFL commissioning a report in 1989 into a revamp of the finals to make for more competitive matches. Ex-league boss Jack Hamilton was involved as was our old friend Ken McIntyre, now nearing 80. Among the discussion points at the time was a best-of-three Grand Final series (hello Andrew Pridham!).

The consensus view was that the team that finished on top of the ladder had too much of an advantage, most minor premiers receiving two Saturday breaks in a month to prime themselves for the Grand Final.

McIntyre built a revamped final five and a brand new final six system for consideration, that the now-AFL pulled the trigger on for 1991 when Adelaide joined to make a 15-team league.

Mike Sheahan urges fans to give the final six a chance in 1991.

The public did not warm to it. Aside from the cynicism that the league wanted to make money, there was a now-illogical quirk of double jeopardy that saw a 3rd v 4th Elimination Final and a fifth vs. sixth Elimination Final.

The issue was that McIntyre’s system was predicated on the instruction to reduce the advantage for top spot and get every team playing in week one.

At the time Sheahan defended McIntyre with a throwback to his history.

“Poor Ken McIntyre,” he wrote. “He conceives the final four system and lives (uneasily) with the fact it becomes universally acknowledged as the Page system.”

“Sixty years on, he is asked to produce a final six system (with restrictions) and if left to carry the inevitable can.”

McIntyre himself was moved to defend himself by saying that his final four system was “bitterly criticised” in 1931, then “it was regarded as sacred when it was superseded by the final five.”

Fourth placed St Kilda was eliminated in a heartbreaker against third placed Geelong, while the average Melbourne defeated sixth place Essendon to progress to week two. Subsequently the system was sensibly changed the next year so third played sixth and fourth played fifth.

Tony Lockett winces after St Kilda were eliminated under the controversial final six system.

VERDICT: Cash grab, with some alibi in striving for a better Grand Final.

FINAL EIGHT

The six only lasted for three years, the major flaw people had with it was that the third placed team had been eliminated in week one of the finals the last two years. Adelaide coach Graham Cornes, whose team was beneficiary of the system, called it a “ridiculous finals configuration.”

Heavyweight figures Kevin Sheedy and John Elliott both called for the introduction of an 8 ahead of the league expanding to 16 teams as the AFL made positive noises about the possibility.

Kevin Sheedy backed the introduction of a final eight.

When it was eventually announced ahead of the 1994 season, the cutting response from broadcaster and commentator Tim Lane summarised the cynical view:

“The chronology of the move towards the eight says much about the way in which change, AFL-style, takes place. With the best intentions, Kevin Sheedy decided it was a good idea. Club administrators immediately twigged to its financial possibilities and agreed, regardless of how it worked,” he wrote.

The move to an eight was perhaps the most blatant economically-driven expansion. Behind the reasons given was the revelation that the AFL came in $330,000 under budget for the previous season’s finals despite a blockbuster Carlton and Essendon finale.

And while the league was making changes, one thing stayed the same.

Devising a system was left to the now 83-year-old Ken McIntyre, and it was the most complex yet.

First would play eighth, second v seventh and so on, with elimination and progression only confirmed after all matches were played. The two ‘lowest ranked losers’ of week one were eliminated, and the two ‘highest ranked winners’ progressed to the newly configured Preliminary Final weekend (the one critically acclaimed part of the new system).

Reports on the original convoluted final eight system.

It was convoluted, the main drawback being if games went to the higher ranked team, other games would become meaningless and result in opponent-swapping the following week.

Eventually in 2000 it was replaced and a non-McIntyre system was used for the first time since 1931. The NRL would continue to use it until 2011

VERDICT: Cash grab 

FINAL TEN?

Momentum towards a ‘wildcard weekend’ seems inevitable despite the resistance. Sheahan himself feels the same way towards a ‘Ten’ as he once did towards an ‘Eight’.

“My view was that it impugned the purity of the system,” he says.

“We spent all these weeks finding the best teams and they’re the ones who deserve to be in the playoffs. And then we just kept extending it until we got down to eight.”

Sheahan falls in the anti-Americanisation camp of footy’s 2024 culture wars.

“I’m in that school, I just can’t believe that almost like a duty, we follow everything that’s done in the States,” he says.

“Of course it’s going to be a money spinner, but if you’ve got six months to earn your spot in the finals and then the team that might finish three wins ahead of tenth can be out in two hours of football? I just don’t think that’s right.”

The McIntyre legacy

Ken McIntyre with his cyclic permutator, a mechanical device he used to create the draw for the 1970 VFL season.

Ken McIntyre passed away in 2004 at the age of 94, a life well-lived in so many ways. In addition to everything outside of football, McIntyre is said to have played a small role in naming Geelong ‘the Cats’ and also created a mechanical ‘cyclic permutator’ that helped the VFL create fixtures.

Yet perhaps the best McIntyre tale happened in, of all places, Portugal.

In 1977 he published a book called ‘Secret Discovery of Australia’ about the possible exploration of Australia by Portuguese before British settlement.

While researching there in the 1970s, McIntyre got talking to a local who was involved in Portugal football. When the local realised he was speaking to an Australian he said he was currently reading about Australian football as his sport was interested in borrowing an element of the sport.

“Would you happen to know anything about their football playoff system?” the local asked McIntyre.

Originally published as The godfather of AFL finals systems Ken McIntyre and the motives behind September expansion