One of St Kilda's best wins of the season at Subiaco tonight - that's the double over Fremantle, a top 4 team, and both wins without Nick Riewoldt. It's St Kilda's second win in a month there even though Subiaco, with it's huge playing surface, doesn't suit St Kilda's pressure game and should really expose our lack of pace.

The final margin was 18 points but that flattered Freo - in the last quarter, St Kilda had 18 inside 50s for just 1 goal.

Melbourne Arab wrote:
Rugby league defector Karmichael Hunt played his first game for the Gold Coast Football Club today in the VFL against Richmond affiliates Coburg. A huge crowd showed up at Craigieburn in Melbourne’s outer north and ABC switched their schedules to show the game live.

Hunt played as a forward and got into the game early with a tackle resulting in a free kick about 30m out. He made a real mess of it sending the shot way left to loud cheers. A few minutes later, though, he got his first goal – a sitter right in front after a team mate handballed over the head of a Coburg defender. Incredibly, 20 seconds later, he had 2 goals after being awarded the softest free kick of all time because AFL veteran Jordan McMahon pushed him in the back as he kicked his first. Hunt looked perplexed by the decision and you can hardly blame him.

After that initial burst of excitement, not much else happened as Gold Coast went on to get smashed. Hunt finished with just 5 possessions – 3 kicks, 2 handballs. His match ended in the third quarter with what looked like a hamstring injury but we are being told is severe cramp.

Verdict? He’s not fit enough to play Aussie Rules and his kicking needs a lot of work. He looked confused as to where to position himself and when to lead. His tackling was good, though. In his defence, he hasn’t had a pre-season as he’s being playing rugby union in France for the last few months.

Not often a game involving a non-AFL club gets any publicity!

The first draw of the season this afternoon in a superb match between Melbourne and Collingwood. Earlier in the year, Collingwood beat Melbourne by a point after Melbourne dropped a mark in the goalsquare 3 seconds from the end. Today, Collingwood kicked a late equaliser.

The result leaves St Kilda clear in second ahead of the grand final rematch in the split round 13.

The AFL have announced that they will be asking for input from supporters as to how the competition should be structured from 2012 with the 18 team league. The options are:

Pre Season

1 Practice matches
2 Representative matches (eg State of Origin)
3 Lightning format competition (borrowed from Twenty20 cricket)

Home and Away

1 Current format
2 Conference system – 2 of 9 or 3 of 6
3 Reset fixture after round 17 to 2 or 3 divisions. This is a bit like the Scottish Premier League split for the last few weeks of the season. Under a 3 division system, the top 6 would play for the double chance (ie top 4 finish), the middle 6 would play for the remaining finals places and the bottom 6 would be playing for nothing but the wooden spoon, blooding youngsters, etc.
4 Three year locked fixture to ensure every team plays every other team 4 times in 3 years – 2 home, 2 away.

Finals

1 Current final 8 format
2 Final 10 with double chance for top 6
3 Final 12 straight elimination
4 Final 12 with double chance for top 2

The alternatives for the finals are awful – I can’t see any need for change there. To have two thirds of the competition in the finals would be ludicrous.

AFL tieing themselves into knots with this suggested new structure.... why can't every team play every other team twice in a season, like happens in every other similar sized league in the whole wide world? Oh, that's right, it would be too tiring for the players. Quite funny really, when aussie rules prides itself on its "toughness"..!

Meanwhile, they are still trying to get their development set up going in South Africa, in the middle of the World Cup finals! You've got to admire their optimism, I suppose.

That toughness is part of the problem though - look how many injuries there are in a 22 game season. 34 games just wouldn't work in a competition where there is no relegation and several clubs start each season knowing they can't make the finals and they are just going through a redevelopment phase.

trimster wrote:
Meanwhile, they are still trying to get their development set up going in South Africa, in the middle of the World Cup finals! You've got to admire their optimism, I suppose.

Even if it seems like a crazy idea, the function that was held in Cape Town didn't go down well with the FFA who were especially pissed off that Sports Minister Kate Ellis was there when she is supposed to be in South Africa supporting the world cup bid.

MA, what *is* the current format? I've never understood how the schedule gets made up. Collingwood gets Essendon at least once maybe twice, everyone wants Collingwood for the gate receipts, but you do or do not necessarily play everyone at least once?

The teams are guaranteed to play each other once although there is no attempt to alternate home advantage from one season to the next to try and add some fairness to it.

The rest of the draw has many complications:

-guaranteed fixtures: 2 WA derbies, 2 SA derbies, Collingwood v Essendon and Carlton twice, Melbourne v Collingwood on the Queen’s birthday (always a Melbourne home game), Essendon v Collingwood on ANZAC Day (alternate home advantage), Sydney at home to Collingwood in a stand alone Saturday night game in the split round, Brisbane home game against Collingwood. It’s a certainty that the two new clubs will also be given guaranteed home games against Collingwood which is going to make Collingwood’s fixture pretty inflexible.

-club wish lists. For most clubs, number 1 is home game with Collingwood, followed by 2 games with Collingwood. Requests such as home game in round 1 to celebrate milestone game of club legend will generally be granted.

-Geelong home games. Stadium restrictions mean they can’t play in Geelong against the big Melbourne clubs.

-games in Darwin, Canberra and Launceston. Collingwood never play in any of these locations. Low drawing clubs like Port Adelaide, Fremantle and North Melbourne tend to find themselves playing away here.

Attendances and tv ratings are also a consideration. It’s no coincidence that Carlton are playing Brisbane twice this season because of Brendan Fevola and likewise Sydney v Western Bulldogs because of Barry Hall. Collingwood have 16 games at the MCG and 19 on free to air. They have a majority of their games on Friday and Saturday nights. North Melbourne have just 1 Friday night game and a majority on pay tv.

If a conference system was implemented, it would be the end of some of the guaranteed fixtures because there is no way Melbourne’s big 3 (Collingwood, Essendon, Carlton) could be placed in the same conference. It would also have to be changed every year otherwise strugglers like the Western Bulldogs and Port Adelaide could miss out permanently on games against Collingwood.

In other words, it is a rigged and unfair fixture system, aimed more at maximising crowds and pleasing some clubs, rather than producing a fair and balanced fixture list. No other football league in the entire world would organise their fixture system in such a way... and "players are only capable of playing a certain number of games in a season" is trotted out as one of the excuses for this farce.

Perhaps they should try reducing the length of games.

Reducing the length of games wouldn't alter the fact that a 34 game season would have too many meaningless games.

The A League and the Scottish Premier League both have teams playing two home games and one away game against sides that might be their main rivals for the championship - very unfair.

If the AFL were all about "rigging" the fixtures to maximise crowds there wouldn't be any games in Darwin, Launceston and Canberra - and games in these locations are on the increase.

Melbourne Arab wrote:
Reducing the length of games wouldn't alter the fact that a 34 game season would have too many meaningless games.

The A League and the Scottish Premier League both have teams playing two home games and one away game against sides that might be their main rivals for the championship - very unfair.

If the AFL were all about "rigging" the fixtures to maximise crowds there wouldn't be any games in Darwin, Launceston and Canberra - and games in these locations are on the increase.

Reducing the length of games might reduce the number of injured players- a big concern at the moment.

At least every team in the Scottish PL and the A League plays every other team three times in a season. In the AFL, a team might play one opponent once in a season, another one twice- that's even more unfair.

And Collingwood hardly ever get to play in Darwin, Launceston or Canberra....!

On that horror day last September, it was the wayward kicking of St Kilda’s small forwards that cost us a deserved premiership – Adam Schneider (2 goals 3 behinds, which should have been at least 4.1); Stephen Milne (0.2 plus a 35 metre grubber which didn’t make the distance); and Andrew McQualter (0.1).

Last night, St Kilda won the grand final rematch by 24 points with the tallest goalkicker, Nick Dal Santo, standing at just 185cm. Schneider kicked 4.1, Milne 2.2 and 20 year old Jack Steven, in only his 4th AFL game, 3.1. Geelong’s highly rated small forwards, Matthew Stokes, Travis Varcoe and Shannon Byrnes, managed only 1 goal between them. The wet conditions made it very tough for the big men of both teams who just couldn’t hold on to a mark.

In the absence of Nick Riewoldt, nobody gave St Kilda a chance. Despite a decent start, they were 17 points down at half time with Geelong well on top in the second quarter. In the second half, Geelong went goalless for the first time in a half since 2001. They didn’t even kick a point in the third quarter.

This was St Kilda’s first home match at the MCG since 2005 but the expected 80,000 crowd didn’t show up after atrocious weather during the day and, in particular, in the couple of hours before the game. Still, 58,000 was more than can be fitted into Etihad Stadium. By the time we walked from the car to the stadium we were drenched and our seats were out in the open – it was a very uncomfortable night although the rain stopped for the second half. The roof at Etihad Stadium has clearly made me soft because I’ve certainly endured much worse in Scotland.

After round 13 last year, St Kilda and Geelong were joint top, both famously on 13-0 ahead of the best game of the modern era. After round 13 this year, St Kilda and Geelong are joint top again but this time both 10-3.

The AFL's fixturing has been up the duff ever since West Coast and Brisbane joined and with every additional team added to the comp, the fixture has grown further disproportionate. As much as I'd love to see a 34 game fixture with actual club non-affiliate reserves competition and longer team lists (50-60 players, including a much bigger Rookie list), it seems unrealistic at this stage. Problems have also occured with the MCG and Victoria using it for potential a Shield final, and pyjama games even though the Junction Oval seems a more realistic venue attendance wise.

As for 'the 8', surely they can't botch that one like 'the 6' in the late 90's. If it is changed we'll also have to start calling the Tigers, 'Thirteenthmond'.

Sainters looked good the other night, still all things considered a long way to go for them (my preseason pick for the flag despite all the Bulldogs hysteria at the time) methinks even though they look like a good thing. Baker 12 weeks reduced to 9, a complete fucking joke...

Steven Baker will not play for St Kilda again before the finals and yet only one of the 4 charges against him was worthy of a report. I couldn’t believe it when I saw that the Herald Sun had this on the front page on Saturday and they seem to have whipped up their readers into a frenzy since their poll shows a majority don’t think the suspension is excessive. I wonder what impact the publicity had on the match review panel especially after the farcical decision the previous week when Chris Judd got away with sticking an elbow into Matthew Pavlich’s eye. I understand that Baker is the second most despised player on the St Kilda list amongst opposition supporters but nobody in their right mind can think this is just.

Call me paranoid but the Herald Sun really have been sticking the boot into St Kilda recently. They surely can’t be that upset about St Kilda being sponsored by The Age.

Hawthorn's season looked over after a 1-6 start but they've now won 7 in a row to be joint 5th with the Western Bulldogs and Carlton.

Last night's 3 point win over the Bulldogs at the MCG was magnificent - one of the best games of the season and a massive blow to the Bulldogs' top 4 chances.

The real beneficiaries last night were Fremantle. If they beat Port Adelaide this weekend, they will open up a 2 game gap between 4th and the chasing pack although Freo still have away games to come against both Hawthorn and the Bulldogs.

Baker's nine-match suspension was a bit steep, I thought, particularly as most of his offences were just the usual push-and-shove niggling that has always been part of the game. What is the AFL playing at, allowing themselves to be influenced by newspapers...?

St Kilda must be keenly anticipating the return of Nick Riewoldt... could be just in time for their finals push.

Melbourne Arab wrote:
The real beneficiaries last night were Fremantle. If they beat Port Adelaide this weekend, they will open up a 2 game gap between 4th and the chasing pack

Well, Freo got the expected easy win but there was little in the way of celebration from the players at the end and the home crowd were very subdued.

One of the great stories of 2010 has been the emergence of Michael Barlow as a huge talent in the Freo midfield. Barlow was overlooked at multiple drafts and looked set for a career in the Victorian state leage. Instead, Freo took a punt on him as a mature age rookie and, after a promising pre season cup, he was elevated to the senior list. Since then, he has averaged 28 possessions (the highest at Freo and one of the highest in the AFL), become, arguably, the best Fremantle player behind their two real elite players Pavlich and Sandilands, and moved up to third in the Brownlow betting. He's also been the success story of Supercoach as those of us smart enough to pick him at the start of the season have watched his value soar by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Six minutes from the end of yesterday's game, he was involved in a big collision with a teammate which saw his leg twisted horribly. Incredibly, he tried to stand up and his leg wobbled about in a sickening fashion before he collapsed onto the turf.

The big question now is can Freo stay top 4 without him?

ESPN appears to have picked up AFL here. I'm watching Sydney-Richmind live at the moment, Sydney up 57-37 in the 3rd.

An unimpressive, error strewn, going through the motions performance this evening from St Kilda but still good enough to beat Melbourne by 35 points which, I suppose, just emphasises the gulf between the top and bottom halves of the AFL ladder.

Actually, to be more accurate, there is a top 7 and then the rest. Sydney and North Melbourne are joint 8th fighting for the last place in the finals. Sydney lost to Richmond today and North have been thrashed every time they've played decent opposition. They play each other next week but whoever finishes 8th will probably be humiliated in September as Essendon were in the first week of the finals last year.