Crows key forward Josh Jenkins wants bonus points for high scoring — a theme worth exploring in the AFL
JOSH Jenkins needs some love. The out-of-contract Crows key forward is kicking goals — more than any other Adelaide player — but cannot get his club to value him as others, such as Brisbane, do.
JOSH Jenkins needs some love. The out-of-contract Crows key forward is kicking goals — more than any other Adelaide player — but cannot get his club to value him as others, such as Brisbane, do.
Jenkins wants Australian football to be kicking more goals — and has suggested the AFL introduce bonus points for teams (winning or losing) that break the watershed 100-point barrier. He is the poster hero of those who argue attack is the best form of defence.
“Attacking football should always be encouraged,” Jenkins recently put forward in his ESPN column. “The time has arrived to introduce a bonus premiership point for those willing and capable of booting high scores.”
The game’s greatest player of the 20th century, Leigh Matthews, quickly shot down Jenkins’ kite. “I like Josh Jenkins as a player,” said Matthews on Radio FIVEaa, “but I don’t like that idea (of bonus points).”
Even first-year Crows coach Don Pyke — the master of the Eagles’ web defence when he was at West Coast — dismissed the radical concept of offering an incentive to score big.
Jenkins is not surprised the old guard — such as Matthews and Pyke — resist change, even though both players emerged from an era when Australian football pushed the boundaries with a national club competition, night football and night finals — and even a yellow, rather than red, football. The game even went indoors.
“Tradition is important,” says Jenkins, “but we can’t allow what we have always done to stand in the way of improvement.”
So Josh, here is an open mind ... a platform ready and eager to look at the big picture.
How would bonus points — today — change the race in the 18-team AFL competition to the top-eight finals in September?
There is one problem with running over the results from the first 11 weeks of the 22-round home-and-away series. In those 99 games, there are some matches where coaches and players would have — to use the phrase — “put the cue in the rack” late in the final term when just shy of 100 points. Who knows how their games would have played out had there been the Jenkins’ incentive of a bonus point for chasing another goal?
But ... if Jenkins was running the AFL, the bonus points would have done the following to the ladder at the halfway mark of the season:
NO change to rankings of the top-four teams: North Melbourne, Sydney, Geelong and the Western Bulldogs. But the Kangaroos — despite having just one more win than the Swans — would have a seven-point lead in the race for the minor premiership and top-billing for the final series that carries the benefit of home finals.
MAJOR change to the next four in the race to September: Adelaide would rise from eighth to fifth, a massive reward for regularly breaking the 100-point mark — eight times this season, so far. Despite having lost more games than the fourth-ranked Bulldogs, the Crows would only need to boost percentage to win the armwrestle with the old Footscray for the double chance in the finals.
IN the bottom 10: Port Adelaide is half-a-step closer to the top eight by having earned six bonus points — from a scoring record that is better than six top-eight teams. The only change in rankings in the bottom-10 is St Kilda and Collingwood swapping 12th and 13th positions.
The flaw in the Jenkins’ model is that bottom-10 teams — particularly those that cannot score big but may win games with a defensive mindset — will find it harder to close the gap to the top eight. Seasons will close earlier for some clubs.
Then there also is the question of venues — there is no standard AFL oval — and conditions, as highlighted on Saturday night when Sydney (79) beat Gold Coast (41) under torrential rain at “Wetricon” Stadium where, as one comedian offered, the “Suns won the toss and kicked to the deep end” of the pool.
One venue designed to deliver perfect conditions for high scoring — and yet has been the scene to some of Ross Lyon’s most defensive games while he was coach at St Kilda — is the indoor Etihad Stadium in the Melbourne Docklands. The attacking-minded Western Bulldogs played their first seven games at Etihad — and would have earned the 100-point bonus point just three times. Luke Beveridge’s team did reach the 90s in two other games — and may have pushed the scoring had the bonus point been on offer ... the very point Jenkins is making.
North Melbourne may have thought it would have been too difficult to bank a Jenkins bonus point last Friday when playing on a dew-drenched open field and cold conditions in Hobart. The Kangaroos scored 124 points.
By contrast, the two games played at Etihad Stadium last week produced scores of 124, 83, 75 and 64 points. The Jenkins’ concept may not be so weighted in favour of pristine venues after all.
Jenkins says some new thinking will bring back some old treasures to Australian football — “You will see 18 teams playing run and gun, uptempo, high-scoring footy — something I know we would all love to see long-term,” he says.
Leigh Matthews may have been too quick to dismiss Jenkins — at least as a thinker rather than a potential gun recruit for his Lions.
REALITY BITES
BACK ON TV
SANFL football is back on television Sunday — after a three-week absence. Norwood hosting Adelaide at The Parade with the telecast starting on 7mate from 1.30pm.
And SANFL devotees wanting an explanation on the “blackout” — particularly last Saturday when there were five SANFL games, all starting at 2.20pm while the Crows and Power prepared for their Sunday double-header — can spare the switchboard operator at Channel Seven.
ROS asked SANFL chief executive JAKE PARKINSON to explain — and it should be remembered that the SANFL has commissioned (at $1 million a season) for a private production company to film State league games with the “feed” passed to Seven. It is not Seven calling the shots.
Parkinson replies: “We only telecast 18 games and finals each season, so we prioritise telecast — when games will be on main channel rather than 7mate (wherever possible) as the viewership is higher. This gives better exposure for the clubs.”
Shall be interesting in August — not just for the SANFL and Seven, but also the sports lover — trying to deal with AFL, SANFL and the Rio Olympics on Seven.
SANFL DRAW
IT may be only the halfway mark of Season 2016 in football, but the thought process to designing next year’s AFL and SANFL fixtures is already underway.
A couple of interesting concepts are to be put before the SANFL football department by the clubs for next season’s draw.
1. ALL five games be placed on Saturday afternoons (with Friday night games reserved for exceptional matches). This is to allow SANFL clubs to have all their staff and volunteers work all grades on the same day.
2. THE SANFL home-and-away series be extended from 18 to 22 rounds.
PEACE TALKS
FOR those who keep asking, the answer is: Yes. Long-time friends and former SA Football Commission colleagues DAVID SHIPWAY and ANDREW KILLEY are still at loggerheads — and have been since the Norwood-aligned Killey had a crack at Shipway’s West Adelaide heritage at the launch for the “Build The Fort” campaign on The Parade.
All hope for peace talks were bogged down this week when neither Shipway nor Killey agree on a venue — Killey wanting to stay on the east side of town and “Shippy” insisting “west is best”.
And when a mediator joked the pair go to neutral ground at Yalta — where unlikely allies such as Churchill and Stalin could negotiate — Killey’s response, suggesting “Yatla” (as in Yatala) was not at all a neutral venue, sent Shipway back to his legal adviser and fellow commission Dion McCaffrie. It remains messy.
Meanwhile, fundraising for the $6 million needed for the new clubhouse at The Parade is approaching $4.3 million.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
SPORTSWRITER Jonathan Horn in the past week has decided to add to a new report card to the long list of midterm analysis in AFL football: Grading the television commentators. He gave the man with the golden tonsils, DENNIS COMETTI, an A — a nice reports card for the West Australian to take to his retirement at the end of the season. He can certainly say he is leaving the microphone while being on top of his game.
But there is a notable absentee among the play-by-play commentators, special comments and boundary riders ... Not often a Brownlow Medallist fails to make an impression.
ONE-TEAM TOWN
ADELAIDE is back to the early 1990s — as a one-team AFL monopoly — according the State government’s “What’s On In Adelaide” website that lists every Crows game at Adelaide Oval this season, but not the full Port Adelaide program.
Who says the State Government led by Port Adelaide card-carrying fan JAY WEATHERILL is loaded with Power cronies?
SURELY NOT
NOW KEN “KG” CUNNINGHAM is getting into the act. After former Crows player Stephen Rowe badged first-year Adelaide coach Don Pyke as “easy listening Don Pyke”, KG has now declared Pyke is “boring”. Good thing the Crows are winning ...
NOTE OF THE WEEK
IT seems only a matter of time now before another AFL badge is put on a proud State league logo. The WA Football Commission met this week to again consider dropping the “WAFL” name to become “AFL-WA”.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“IF I am asked about the most remarkable human being I ever encountered, it would have to be Muhammad Ali. I interviewed him four times and lost on points on just about every occasion.”
— MICHAEL PARKINSON
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au
Originally published as Crows key forward Josh Jenkins wants bonus points for high scoring — a theme worth exploring in the AFL
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