The AFL - a national competition? (split thread)

[KTigers]

Re the free kick thing ; It's a given the home teams in SA & WA during the regular season are heavily favoured, so it's not
surprising the same thing happens at grand finals and the Melbourne based teams are the recipients of the positive counts.
You wonder if the umpires are ever counseled to not get sucked in by the crowd. Surely the AFL umpiring dept must know
this is an issue.

[Blue Sun]

Liz, being the professor of popular opinions on here doesn't make you right all the time.
Over a long period, free kicks should even out.
Fact. The Vic teams have the home crowd advantage in grand finals.
Fact. Crowds influence umpires. Perth, Adelaide, anywhere.
Fact. It's very unlikely that 5 games in a row would have the same lopsided free kick counts.

I have to side with barry on this one. If everything was fair, the law of averages dictates that free kick counts would even out over time. I know we've all seen this table before, but the evidence is undeniable. Is it unconscious bias, probably - but who really knows?

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[CureTheSane]

Yeah, obviously stats accumulated over a long period of time present a picture, not sure why this is in debate.

That said, I'm one who's been saying for a while that while I accept both a home ground bias, and am open (to some degree) to a personal bias in some umpires, the biggest reason why some clubs give away more frees is because it isn't coached out of them. They are not taking enough care to avoid giving the frees away.
And I dare say some coaching staff are ok with this.
What would piss them off is the reactionary silly frees being given away. Hard to coach frustration out of players though.

Case in point would be Richmond (I remember them sticking out on some other table).
How do they have a poor record to 2010, then turn it around for 4 years, and then let it slide back.
They alone could bring some light to why the differential is as it is.
Freo possibly as well.
Would be interesting to see what changed within the teams during the green periods on the table.

[stevoswan]

Yeah, obviously stats accumulated over a long period of time present a picture, not sure why this is in debate.

That said, I'm one who's been saying for a while that while I accept both a home ground bias, and am open (to some degree) to a personal bias in some umpires, the biggest reason why some clubs give away more frees is because it isn't coached out of them. They are not taking enough care to avoid giving the frees away.
And I dare say some coaching staff are ok with this.
What would piss them off is the reactionary silly frees being given away. Hard to coach frustration out of players though.

This is not relevant to the Swans though. We don't play with aggressive intent (bar Jones) and don't give away free kicks 'willy nilly' through carelessness. We are a ball focused team and are clearly adjudicated with prejudice.

In regard to the 'noise of affirmation' of home crowds, it's real and it's clearly more of a factor in the two states west of Victoria as they are the traditional Victorian rival footy states in terms of Australian Rules history. They hate Victoria (actually, pretty much anything from outside their own state) and this is why their fans are feral and loud and intimidating. Crowds north of the Vic border don't have the inbred hatred of Victoria and 'outsiders' born from the State of Origin era and are rather meek compared with those of SA and WA.....hence less noise of affirmation.

Plus, on top of all that, the AFL simply don't like us because we got Buddy.

[CureTheSane]

This is not relevant to the Swans though. We don't play with aggressive intent (bar Jones) and don't give away free kicks 'willy nilly' through carelessness. We are a ball focused team and are clearly adjudicated with prejudice.

Nobody is suggesting that an aggressive style of play and demeanour is causing the free kicks against the team.
Simply, we have 2 choices here
1. The umpires are biased against the Swans
2. The team is not careful enough not to give away frees when playing.

As much as people like to think 1, is at play, in reality it isn't.
To reduce frees being given away, some motions and lazy actions need to be bred out of the team.
The question is - is it worthwhile and more effort required than the benefits it may bring?
Does the differential have that much of an impact on the game (generally - take out anomalies like 2016 GF)

[Velour&Ruffles]

Liz, being the professor of popular opinions on here doesn't make you right all the time.
Over a long period, free kicks should even out.
Fact. The Vic teams have the home crowd advantage in grand finals.
Fact. Crowds influence umpires. Perth, Adelaide, anywhere.
Fact. It's very unlikely that 5 games in a row would have the same lopsided free kick counts.

Can't believe I'm saying this, but I think Barry is right on this one and Liz is wrong (is this really me speaking?). In any individual game the raw stats don't tell you a lot about ingrained systemic bias.... but over a long period you WOULD expect it to even out. They haven't got even remotely close to evening out so seems like a lopsided playing field to me.

- - - Updated - - -

Ok, all grand finals involving one Vic and one non Vic team.
Only 3 (1991, 1996, and 2002) has a non Vic team come out marginally in front of the free kick count. Out of 17 such grand finals .

Just 17% , and none for the past 16 years. Damning.

yep, this is the point.

[Velour&Ruffles]

Nobody is suggesting that an aggressive style of play and demeanour is causing the free kicks against the team.
Simply, we have 2 choices here
1. The umpires are biased against the Swans
2. The team is not careful enough not to give away frees when playing.

As much as people like to think 1, is at play, in reality it isn't.
To reduce frees being given away, some motions and lazy actions need to be bred out of the team.
The question is - is it worthwhile and more effort required than the benefits it may bring?
Does the differential have that much of an impact on the game (generally - take out anomalies like 2016 GF)

Um, isn't the fact that it does have an impact on the single most important game of the year - the game that's the POINT of the whole damn season - a bit of an issue?

[CureTheSane]

Um, isn't the fact that it does have an impact on the single most important game of the year - the game that's the POINT of the whole damn season - a bit of an issue?

Weird.
One post you're agreeing that long term stats are a representation of a trend.
Then in the very next post you want to single out one particular game.

So your contention is that the average differential in free kicks is due to umpiring against the Swans?
And given that the Swans were umpired by many different individual umpires during the season, I guess they are also colluding amongst themselves to target the Swans?

Here's a much more realistic proposition.
That the team infringes more than most other teams.
No umpire bias, no conspiracies, no hatred for the Swans.

It should be able to be trained out of the side, like it has in other sides as per the stats in the table posted.

[Velour&Ruffles]

sorry, didn't really read your post properly and was at cross purposes.

My thinking was that while any individual game is not by itself good evidence of bias, the individual game may still be afflicted by bias and that that still matters.

But that wasn't really relevant to what you were saying. I will read more carefully in the future.

[CureTheSane]

No problems.

I think everyone here agrees that the 2016 GF was either consciously or subconsciously unfairly umpired for a range of reasons.

[stevoswan]

No problems.

I think everyone here agrees that the 2016 GF was either consciously or subconsciously unfairly umpired for a range of reasons.

.....and all of them are inexcusable.

[barry]

Resurrecting an old thread (which is a great read by the way if youve got the time), but it looks like West Coast and WA are using the Covid-19 season and hubs as real push-back against the vic bias of an MCG final.
I hope the other non-victorian teams unite behind them.

[Ralph Dawg]

Resurrecting an old thread (which is a great read by the way if youve got the time), but it looks like West Coast and WA are using the Covid-19 season and hubs as real push-back against the vic bias of an MCG final.
I hope the other non-victorian teams unite behind them.

I'd take it one further and say in the best interests of the AFL season reaching completion, they need to move all Melbourne teams out of Melbourne into hubs spread across Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, GC, Brisbane and Tasmania. Extremely low Covid numbers in all those localities. I'm sure you could convince respective premiers to allow flights between these centres, teams could train properly, scratch matches for all reserves and most importantly, there would also be crowds. If the AFL is truely national, and if it is run in the best interests of the game, then this needs to happen until Melbourne gets back under control. If this doesn't happen at all in 2020, then the Vics should suck it up.

[barry]

Scotty from marketing has gone quiet on his 'open the borders' sloganeering.

[Ruck'n'Roll]

Can't believe I'm saying this, but I think Barry is right on this one and Liz is wrong (is this really me speaking?). In any individual game the raw stats don't tell you a lot about ingrained systemic bias.... but over a long period you WOULD expect it to even out. They haven't got even remotely close to evening out so seems like a lopsided playing field to me.

I'm in the same boat. I've completely changed my mind. The data absolutely demonstrates that on this occasion at least the mainstream/voice-of-reason Liz appears to simply be wrong and the oft thought of as mad-Barry is right.