Category Archives: Swans

Apologies & A Summary.

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Okay. I am sorry.

Boyfriend recently had surgery and it is finals time so I have had approximately zero time to write.  (Okay, that’s not entirely true, when boyfriend was home recovering I had time… but I spent it watching movies on the couch – sue me).

Many, MANY things have been happening recently, especially in AFL, and I want to write about them all.  Since I can’t (without being ridiculously out of date) I am doing a summary of what I think about the recent stuff that’s been going on.  So prepare yourselves.

ANZAC Day Game, Collingwood/Essendon – Great game. Good effort. Could Tim and Jobe Watson be any more adorable? I THINK NOT. I was pretty impressed that the WHOLE place (including standing room, apparently) sold out.  This is seriously a great game.  Here are my two cents: they need to share the revenue. It’s unfair to the other clubs, especially because Collingwood is already one of the richest clubs in the league.  And while I completely support the recognition of ANZAC Day… do you really need three hours of coverage before hand? Probably not. Just a thought.  And… DO I NEED TO WRITE ANOTHER POST ABOUT CHANNEL SEVEN?!  STOP WITH THE MADDENING CAMERA ANGLES!!!  Even boyfriend has noticed – and when anything

ANZAC Day Game, Swans/St. Kilda - This actually went better than I thought. I know that I was unhappy about it at the beginning, but it worked, I think.  The idea of getting NZ involved on ANZAC Day is really great but, and I’m being honest, it doesn’t feel like it was thought all the way through.  Who was in charge of marketing this thing?  The crowd was really sad.  And choosing a club who had a betting sponsor plastered all over their jumpers (which is illegal in NZ) wasn’t exactly forward thinking.  However, if this is going to be a yearly thing, with different clubs playing each year… then maybe this could work.

Essendon Drug Fiasco – Ugh, Hird. Why? You know… I have so many issues with this thing, and not the ones you would think.  My issue is with the players.  What kind of player doesn’t ask about what they’re being given?  Now, boyfriend says: “You’re supposed to listen to what the team doctors say otherwise why would they hire them?” True, my dear, very true.  But once players hear ‘injection’ that is the cue to talk to someone.  Actually, talk to EVERYONE.  Coach, physios, GMs, CEOs, the AFLPA.  Even if they tell you just to do it and that it doesn’t matter and to listen, you can (at the very least) cover your own ass and say: “I asked, they said it was fine.” Which, although not an excuse, would probably transfer some of the blame.  C’mon boys – you’re grown men. And grown men ask questions.

Adam Scott Masters – Congratulations, Adam. Aussies are rising up!  So here is my question: where are the sponsors?  I have noticed how much pride Australians have for their countrymen.  I mean when Cadel Evans won the Tour de France? WHOA. So much national pride.  Adam Scott winning the Masters was big and there are so many opportunities for sponsors, especially marketing to the Australian market.  Like Nike?  I know they heart Tiger Woods, but Adam would look so good in a Nike ad (or even one of Nike’s competitors like Reebok or Adidas? Oh, goodness. I die).  I think that there are some serious opportunities here that NO ONE is taking advantage of.  Let me tell you, if I were the sponsorship director of a big company (I’m looking at you, Swisse) I’d be on Adam Scott like white on rice (actually, I prefer brown rice, but you get the idea…)

Okay… I had a whole lot of other things to write… but your eyes need a bit of a break.  So come back tomorrow and I shall continue my summary. Deal? Deal.

Til tomorrow darlings.

The Problem With The Battle Of The Bridge

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You deserve a short post. You’ve been reading a lot lately.

Now it’s no secret that I think Kevin Sheedy is awesome.  There are posts here, here, and here, to prove that.  But I don’t think I can be on his side for this latest one.

He has dubbed the “rivalry” between his club, the GWS Giants, and the Sydney Swans, ‘The Battle of the Bridge’ and people are not too happy about it – the Swans in particular.  There’s an article on the AFL website saying that Josh Kennedy is bothered by it because he doesn’t think the Sydney Swans only appeal to Eastern Sydney, as the rivalry name suggests.  They’ve been working for years to be a Sydney institution and the name seems to be diminishing their hard work.  I’m not sure that was Kevin Sheedy’s intention, but that is what it seems like.

Indeed, the clubs are located on opposite sides of town and there is a bridge that separates them but to me, it seems as though GWS thinks they have exclusive rights to Western Sydney.  And they don’t.  They don’t get to have those fans just because it’s where they’re located – the Sydney Swans can encroach on their territory, just like they can encroach on the Swan’s territory.  This is slightly unfair since the Swans have a 20 year jump on GWS, who is new and can use all the help it can get (I don’t say that in a rude way, I say it because it’s fact) but those are the facts.

Furthermore, this whole thing was not thought out properly.  Have you seen the advertisements for the game?  The original image said ‘Battle of the Bridge’ – and yet, there is no bridge.  The image of the bridge seems to be key in this marketing ploy and it wasn’t even present.  They have since updated it (likely due to the flack they received, especially on Twitter) but it’s still a rather egregious oversight.

My last note is this… we are talking about the premiership club playing the ones who won the wooden spoon.   Is it really a ‘battle’ yet?  Yes, David and Goliath is one of my favourite stories, but I’m not sure this qualifies as a battle… it’ll probably be more of a trampling (although I hope not, because we all know I don’t like to see Jeremy Cameron lose).

I get that Sheeds is a quick talker (he’s so sassy – I love that) and optimizes marketing like no other coach in the league, but maybe he should have waited on this one… and tried not to irk the Swans.  I’ll stop now because the last thing I want is an open letter to me on the GWS website.

(Also, if you Google ‘Battle of the Bridge’ you discover a fight that took place between the Arab Muslims and the Persians in 634. Not so sure the clubs want that as their namesake…  There is also a New Zealand Rugby function by that name, as well as a golf tournament.  We can come up with something more original, can’t we?)

UPDATE: Just a few hours after I wrote this post, Sheeds wrote an open letter to Swans fans (FYI: I am both a Swans and a Giants fan – I own both club’s hats!) where he explicitly says he thinks rivalries can be manufactured. Sorry, sir. I do not agree.  You can’t honestly think that the Swans/Giants “rivalry” is as good as Man U v Man City (not yet, at least), can you?  And props to Sheeds for his sassy comment about Tippett – we all know I’ve never liked him (even though I sometimes have to act unbiased). Yuck.

A New Structure For The AFL.

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Competitive balance: a scenario in which every team has an equal chance of winning a championship;  one team is not dominating the league; in a perfectly balanced competition, every team’s win-lose percentage would equal .500

In my ‘Best of the Week’ post from 12 January, I told you all about a new blog I found called Footy Maths and shared an article called ‘A Very Good Year?’  There were lots of interesting ideas in there that I’ve been thinking about.

In the article, the author talks about why a 17 round season won’t work (NOTE: they say it’s 17 weeks, but I assume teams will still get a BYE so I think it’ll be 18 weeks, 17 rounds).  He then briefly mentions that what could work is dividing the league into 3 divisions of 6 teams each and says even that has its downfalls.  Which it does.  they said they would talk about it in a future post but I am impatient and I want to talk about doing it my way.

I really liked the suggestion that the league be split into 3 divisions.  I assume they meant clubs would play those in their division twice, which results in a 22 round season (23 weeks, most likely).  The problem is: how?  If they were do divide geographically, they’d get this (I assume)

West Central East
Adelaide St Kilda Sydney Swans
Port Adelaide Carlton GWS
West Coast Collingwood Gold Coast
Fremantle North Melbourne Brisbane Lions
Western Bulldogs Melbourne Richmond
Essendon Geelong Hawthorn

Let’s look at this, shall we?

First, looking at the non-play aspects, dividing geographically means attendance would probably increase since there would be less travel for people.  It could also mean better rivalries since you’re playing against the same teams for the top spots each year.  However, while Aussies aren’t known to be big scrappers (especially AFL fans) maybe encouraging rivalries (especially for those Collingwood fans) isn’t such a good idea.

Looking at the way the actual season would play out… this is where I see a problem.  The number of strong and weak teams in each division is relatively equal.  But when the talent is spread out, it is very likely that certain teams would dominate the league.  If this were to be the structure in 2013, for example, the East division has obvious winners – there is no doubt that Hawthorn and Sydney would steamroll GWS, GC and Brisbane.  In the west, Adelaide and West Coast would crush Port and the Bulldogs. In the Central division, things could get a bit interesting since Collingwood and Geelong were near the bottom of the eight, but odds are they would come out on top over Melbourne and Carlton.  And there you have it – your top teams from 2012 would be on top once again.

Since the AFL has devices in place, such at the reverse order draft, then it is possible that teams improve and rise to the top of their division.  There would probably be a very obvious pattern: teams such as GWS, Gold Coast and Port lose for a few years, get a bunch of great draft picks (hopefully!) and move to the top.  After a few years, the teams who had moved to the bottom will move to the top again… and it’s all one big cycle.  That’s no fun.  And it’s not interesting.

This division would be difficult because the clubs closest in quality (meaning they are closest on the ladder) are in Melbourne making it more difficult for Melbourne clubs to get into the eight.  This could be a good thing because it limits the number of Melbourne-based clubs that are in the finals, and that specific division will be relatively balanced in terms of competition.  The teams in the East, by contrast, have two expansion teams making it easier for the other four to move up in the ladder, meaning Sydney and Hawthorn would be in the finals for at least for the next couple of years.  This would be poor competitive balance.

Most leagues strive for competitive balance since one team dominating the league is bad for attendance, sponsorship, and fan morale.  If we assume that the AFL also strives for competitive balance then this is a poor model.  A good model would be where each team has the opportunity to do well, they all have the opportunity to get into the eight, and they all have the opportunity to win half their games (see definition of competitive balance at the top.  That would be a good model… and I know what model should be used.  Are you ready? (Deep breathe)

Split the league into thirds… by their ladder position from the previous year.

Yes. That’s right.  Is your mind blown?  Good.  I’ll let that sit for a while and next week, I’ll tell you why this would work.  This post is already ridiculously long.

(Oh, by the way, if this goes into effect, then it’s time for the AFL to give in and admit they need me)

My Insignificant (But Still Kinda Cool) AFL Birthday Research.

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I am a nerd.

It is my curse that I am obsessed with meaningless statistics.  I could literally reading league and team financial statements for weeks on end until I had all the information memorized.  I have a folder on my computer called ‘To Read’ that contains nothing but articles on the Australian sports industry – it’s almost like a sickness. So you can imagine how ecstatic I was when I found out that no one had looked at AFL players birthdays yet.

Let me explain.

I recently read a book called ‘Outliers: The Story of Success’ by Malcolm Gladwell (mind-boggling, at some points – check it out if you like to be mentally challenged) and he talks about sports where the majority of the players are born at a certain time of year.  It started with elite hockey teams in Canada, when someone realized that most of the players were born in January. But it’s also true for baseball players in the USA (who are mainly born in August) and soccer (I’m sorry, football) players in South America.  Of course I had to know if  it were true for the AFL and I started at my favorite starting point: the Sydney Swans and GWS Giants.

The Theory

Gladwell explains that the reason for the discrepancy starts during childhood.  There is an age cutoff at a certain time of year (usually coinciding with the beginning or end of a school year) when children are allowed to play for a specific team (in the case of AFL, the under 9s, under 12s, etc). Therefore, those who are born immediately following the cutoff date will be the older, bigger and stronger ones the following year.  They won’t have MUCH of an advantage, but it will be noticeable enough to be chosen over those who are 11 months younger.  As a result, these children get more attention and more practice, which makes them even better players who are then chosen for even more competitive leagues.  This cycle continues until they are old enough to be drafted into the professional league.  Understand?

I thought this was interesting because people always want to attribute it to talent… but maybe not? Maybe it’s this completely arbitrary factor. Wouldn’t that be amazing?

So in Australia, the cutoff is (I believe) 31 Dec.  Therefore, the kids born in January are considered the better players.  I guessed that this would result in most AFL players being born in January, like in Canadian hockey (or at least in the first few months of the year).

The Results

They weren’t that impressive.  I analysed four sets: The current GWS Giants, the current Sydney Swans, all previous Swans players (since the 1980 season), and all current AFL players.  The numbers are below.   The first sets show the break down by month, the second show the break down by quarter and the thrd shows the break down by halves of the year.

GWS Giants Sydney Swans Swans from 1980 All Current AFL Players
Jan 4 Jan 8 Jan 40 Jan 61
Feb 4 Feb 3 Feb 22 Feb 70
Mar 6 Mar 6 Mar 35 Mar 82
Apr 8 Apr 3 Apr 29 Apr 70
May 5 May 3 May 26 May 68
Jun 3 Jun 6 Jun 29 Jun 89
Jul 2 Jul 1 Jul 24 Jul 67
Aug 4 Aug 5 Aug 21 Aug 55
Sep 4 Sep 4 Sep 23 Sep 68
Oct 3 Oct 3 Oct 26 Oct 65
Nov 2 Nov 0 Nov 17 Nov 53
Dec 4 Dec 2 Dec 18 Dec 50
1st Quar 14 1st Quar 17 1st Quar 97 1st Quar 163
2nd 16 2nd 12 2nd 84 2nd 227
3rd 10 3rd 10 3rd 68 3rd 200
4th 9 4th 5 4th 61 4th 168
1st half 30 1st half 29 1st half 181 1st half 390
2nd 19 2nd half 15 2nd 129 2nd 368

As you can see… there’s a slight difference – more players are clearly born at the start of the year for the individual teams.  But once the pool gets bigger (in columns 3 and 4), it pretty much evens out.  That’s kind of depressing. I wanted to find something amazing!  It is noteworthy that there are hardly any players born in November and December… although October tends to be a toss up. What does this mean? Not very much… but if I were a recruiter, I wouldn’t waste my time on a player born in November or December unless I heard he had wings. Odds are, he’s not that great

The Reasons

There’s only one thing I can think of that can cause these results: access to play.  This is the reason from Gladwell about why this isn’t true for basketball players in the USA – you can access the resources needed to increase skills at any time, and at low cost (comparatively).  It is easier to grab a basketball and go down to one of the many courts, than it is to buy skates, pads and helmet and access one of the few skating rinks that is set up with a goal.  The same applies for AFL, as I see it.  It is not difficult to get a ball (even if it’s not a Sherrin – you can get a decent one) and walk to a field, which are all over the place in Australia.  Hell, you don’t even need a field. I’ve seen boys practice by trying to kick through a door in the house – over and over and over – to practice their aim (you know who you are!).  It is interesting, though, about the very few players are born in the last two months of the year.  That can be attributed to the initial theory.

What’s Next?

I think I’m going to look at all the Brownlow and Coleman Medalists (and maybe runners-up?)… that should be an interesting comparison. Maybe the All-Australian team and Rising Star noms/winners? Is it weird that this is actually exciting? I’ll probably get it done tonight.

What do you think? Are you surprised? Or are you a November-baby and lamenting that you’ll probably not make it to the big leagues?

The Swans Are Smart And Kurt Tippett Is… Not.

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Free agency and I… we have a complicated relationship.  Maybe I’ll tell you about it someday.  The economist in me knows that it’s the right thing to do and it must be allowed but the sports fan in me closes its eyes, grits its teeth and waits for all the trades to be over.  But this thing with Kurt Tippett just made me roll my eyes, especially considering how it’s pretty much shaping the rest of the trades.  The way I see it, Sydney could be getting a great deal and Tippett could be making a big mistake.

Why Sydney Is Smart

The Sydney Swans are smart to grab him up. For starters (and one of the most important aspects when obtaining players in a trade) is that he’s the perfect age to make some big contributions.  Depending on the sport, professional athletes tend to hit their stride between 23 – 26 and have a good few years after that. An added benefit is that they haven’t spent the past six years training him. It’s expensive to train players – and usually, if you get him at the right price, it’s cheaper to trade for him once someone else has done the hard yards.  If I were a coach, I would only draft 19 year olds and trade for 25 year olds. It’s genius.

Tippett is also a great compliment to the current forward half – they’re all young, but they’re on the right side of 26. I can see that being one of the strongest offenses in the league come 2014 (personally, I think they’re just a bit too young to dominate next year and if we’re honest, Hawthorne has the best offense right now). If those guys learn to play together, and play well, there’s no reason why Sydney shouldn’t be looking at another premiership in the near future.

And not only is he a decent forward, he can play the ruck. This is important since all the Swans current ruckmen are getting up there in age and, I believe, aren’t that great (sorry Shane Mumford, I’m just not your biggest fan).  They’re good, sure, but Tippett could be better.

And have I mentioned that they’re likely getting him dirt cheap? Yea. Adelaide might as well give him away.

Why Kurt Tippett Is… Not

The first thing that my boyfriend said when he heard about Tippett wanting to leave Adelaide was ‘Adelaide is getting good – why would he leave now?’ My reaction was, ‘Sydney just won the premiership – he’s already missed the boat.’ Let me explain. I know that it’s blasphemous to say your team isn’t going to win, especially after a great win in a great game against a great team, but look at it this way: since the massive changes to the AFL in the 80s, only four teams have won the premiership twice in a row (one team won three years in a row, but I’m calling that a freak accident).  I think it’s safe to say that players go to teams where they think they’ll win a premiership.  Isn’t that every pro athlete’s goal?  And odds are stacked against Sydney to win next year – he would have been better off staying with Adelaide.

Adelaide also okay’ed the trade because he told them he wanted to go home to Queensland. He made a deal with them so that Adelaide would accept whatever they were given (essentially) so Tippett could go play at home. That’s a pretty nice thing to do considering how valuable he is.  Now that he’s shirking his half of the bargain, Adelaide has changed their mind about what they’re willing to take for him. And they should… but it might damage their relationship with the Swans and that would be a sad day.

Adelaide could also get screwed in this whole agreement because if no deal is made… Tippett can just run away to another club leaving Adelaide with no compensation. Tippet gets whatever he wants in either case. It all seems shady to me.

I don’t really respect players who request trades.  He’s also not a free agent. I don’t know… just seems rude, to me. Have some loyalty, man. And doing it because you claim homesickness? YOU ARE A GROWN MAN.

Oh, and I’m not a big supporter of breaking up via text. Seriously, Kurt? That’s just cruel.