Friday arvo, I’m bored, and the Bombres don’t have a game this weekend. Time to stir some sht.
Share your footy related HOT TAKES. Opinions of yours that really go against the grain. When sharing your HOT TAKE, back it up. Don’t just make the statement. Tell us why.
I will grade your HOT TAKE on just how hot it is using the universally recognised Nandos peri-peri sauce scale. “Extra Hot” being “wowee absolutely no one in the world will back you on that but good on you for believing in it” down to “Lemon & Herb” being “get the fk outta here with that crap”.
There’s absolutely no justification for it other than “but muh tradition”. It perpetuates the nepotistic “jobs for the boys” culture that prevents clubs from being managed well. Results in players being massively overrated because of their surname. And it also means more resources at the youth level are getting pumped into sons of high level players rather than going to the effort of talent id’ing and developing players with actual promise.
I would scrap the “ball touched the goal post, it’s a behind” rule.
I’d also scrap it being a behind if it’s touched by an opposition player.
You get it through the big sticks, it’s a goal. Regardless if it touches the goal post or the opposition.
It would remove a lot of the goal line reviews which are poorly done with the vision and technology used. Go figure trying to correctly work out a possible finger touch that happened 30 metres from the goals.
Too much supporting information for these to be HOT TAKES.
Mine: dramatically shorten length of season. Zero pre season. 17 rounds. 4 finals. That’s only 21 weeks of football out of 52 for the year. Footy just ain’t that great that it needs to take up the whole goddam year.
I grade this a Medium. It’s a fundamental shift in how the game is played, but reasoned well enough that you’re not going to get much emotional opposition.
-edit- I assume hitting the post and still being in play = play on?
I grade yours a Hot. While you’re not going to cop much blowback here, imagine the visceral reaction this proposal would get in literally any room at AFL House or Channel 7.
They should remove soft caps. Fark the poor clubs. If a club wants to scout the best talent from around the world to manage players health and fitness or coach the team they should be able to. The soft caps are stopping clubs from reaching world class levels of professionalism.
I would keep the season at 22 games, but fark off all those interstate wanker teams and bring back Fitzroy and South Melbourne. Yep 12 teams and each play each other twice, then a top 4 for the finals.
Think about it; all the best players would be in 12 teams not the zillion we have now, and they wouldn’t have to ravel much, save a few trips to Geebung.
Brownlow medal voting system of 3 2 1 remains, however is not decided by umpires but by an independent panel that will be different for every game, will watch their game live and will have access to watch post game vision before submitting their votes.
Officiating umpires have no say in the decision on votes for the game.
Might one day again see a non midfielder win the medal.
I’ll go with an old chestnut of mine.
We should have at least one and possibly two international teams, neither of which is New Zealand.
Cities with very large populations.
South Africa because they have the grounds, and if Rugby Union can do it then so can we.
Possibly Japan because of the time zone.
They’d suck and have little support to start with but we’ve done it before with Sydney (and GWS) and the benefits with international advertising and sponsorship would be worth it.
Plus it grows the game and gives us better access to elite athletes, increasing the talent pool rather than diluting it.
