Monday, February 27, 2017
Forecasting Footy with FOLLOWING FOOTBALL!
Within the Act II Ministries we have a sub-blog called FOLLOWING FOOTBALL. Here, I cover not just Australian but also American and Canadian big-league football, as well as Division 1 college football in the US. Being a math geek and an avid footy fan, I’ve kept a myriad of stats on each sport, and I’ve had good fortune in both the AFL and ESPN tipping competitions over the years, almost always placing in the top ten percent. In the CFL, I’m only in the top third the last two years. And to prove that statistical knowledge is a useful tool, I’m below average in the AFLW competition this year, having no idea ahead of time what the teams would be like!
To give you some background, I’ll share some of FOLLOWING FOOTBALL’s info from last year (and before), and then give you some educated guesses for 2017.
Team Ratings
Sydney Swans à started 2016 season at 63.2; starts 2017 before the JLT series at 81.3.
An average rating is 50.0. In fact, with the AFLW starting from scratch this season, we started the eight teams with that fifty rating and have gone from there. As of week four, here’s where the eight teams stand: Adelaide (60.3); Brisbane (55.3); Carlton (54.2); Melbourne (53.0); Collingwood (45.9); Western (45.6); Fremantle (43.6); and GWS (42.1). At this point, of course, it’s a lousy predictor – the system’s only batting .500 so far. But it’s a long term system, and it should continue to become more effective as time goes by.
Year to Year changes
As is often noted, since 2008 there have been either two or three teams that dropped out of the finals (and, coincidentally, the exact same number has moved into finals! Who’d’ve thunk it?). What’s less well known was that in the last ten years, six of the 14th place finishers jumped all the way into the finals the next year (and St. Kilda almost made it last year, missing 8th by percentage). In comparison, only five ninth place teams have made the piddling leap into finals the next year.
Fremantle last year became the first top-of-the-ladder team to miss finals since 1993’s Bombers placed tenth in 1994. By contrast, the wooden spoon winners have often made finals: West Coast went from 2010’s spoon to fourth in 2011, and in consecutive years, Melbourne in 1997 and Brisbane in 1998 both jumped from 16th into top four appearances the next year. Richmond almost joined this club, placing last in 2007 before jumping to (ah, of course) ninth the next year.
Here’s something worth tracking for 2017 and beyond: teams that have a higher percentage than their record would predict usually place higher the next year – it happens 2 out of every 3 times – and teams that have a lower percentage than their record would predict virtually alwaysplace lower the next year (over 85% of the time).
The higher percentage rule is really only effective looking at middle of the pack teams who stray from the even scoring of the 100% mark. Teams at the top or bottom of the ladders are going to vary a great deal more than those in the middle just by nature – that defines their competition more than their own prospects. But if this theory holds for 2017, Port Adelaide should make finals this year (which I truly don’t think they will. But do I have the guts to go against my own metric?). Nobody else was significantly off center in 2016.
The lower percentage rule works all over the place, although when it fails it tends to fail towards the bottom because, let’s face it, they’re already a bad team at that point. If this holds, Hawthorn should drop precipitously (and I think they will – and so did they, hence the radical trades they made in the off-season).
What do I see happening in 2017?
I’m still thinking Western has the edge over Sydney in balance across the pitch, and the other three teams who have an outside shot at the title in my estimation are Geelong, Adelaide, and maybe the West Coast Eagles. Their reps as ‘flat track bullies’ is completely deserved, and the only reason I include them is if somehow Sam Mitchell changes that culture from within this season. I don’t think the Cats have the defenders nor the Crows the midfield depth to defeat enough of the top three to make the Grand Final.
The fight to be knocked out in the first week of finals comes down to St Kilda, Melbourne, Hawthorn, and Port Adelaide. The Saints and Demons are on their way up; both look much better already this summer, and the “two-new-teams-in” rule works to their advantage. I have more faith in the Hawks than the Power, so I’m placing these teams in the order listed, and when the dust settles I don’t think it’ll be a percentage difference that keeps 9th from 8th this year, unless Hawthorn’s new boys gel faster than expected.
Below that, it’s hard to know what Essendon will look like this year. So far this summer, the signs are good, certainly better than Fremantle,whom the Eagles annihilated on their first hit out, and Collingwood, who beat the Dons only because the latter tired out in the fourth their first game out.
I was ready to drop both North Melbourne and Gold Coast well below those three, but they’ve both showed strong signs of life this spring. The Kangas have found some youth that seems to work together well (heard a commentator suggest that getting rid of four legends was the only way they’d be able to force themselves to find out if they had the future here or not, since the vets might never be outplayed), and the Suns picked four usable parts with those top ten draft picks (and the injuries have only hit one Day so far this season). Richmond’s looked decent this pre-season and might move up a couple of places if injuries hit the Suns and others. So, put these six teams bunched up in slots 11-16 in this order: Essendon, Collingwood, Fremantle, Gold Coast, Richmond, and North, based on the quality of teams. When you see the records, you’ll realize how the schedule adjusts that when they actually play the games.
The bottom two are pretty easy. Carlton looks to take a step back from evidence, and even taking two steps forward, Brisbane has a long way to go to climb out of the cellar this season.
MY 2017 LADDER. I played out the season in my head and came up with this projection:
MY 2017 FINALS BRACKETS:
Second weekend, it would be West Coast going to Adelaide and getting beaten, and Geelong going to Sydney and… well, I could see that one going either way, frankly, depending on health.
Third weekend, the big question becomes: Do the two teams (Giants and Bulldogs) get rusty having played just once in four weeks? If not, presume a GWS/Western final. They should be the class of the AFL this year.
Who wins? If it’s close towards the end, I’d lean to the defending champs who’ve been there before. If GWS can get a 13+ point lead going into the fourth quarter, as they should, they’ll definitely win. Any lead and they should win, but I wouldn’t feel good about being in a close game with the Bulldogs after last year’s September magic!
Thanks for reading!
Within the Act II Ministries we have a sub-blog called FOLLOWING FOOTBALL. Here, I cover not just Australian but also American and Canadian big-league football, as well as Division 1 college football in the US. Being a math geek and an avid footy fan, I’ve kept a myriad of stats on each sport, and I’ve had good fortune in both the AFL and ESPN tipping competitions over the years, almost always placing in the top ten percent. In the CFL, I’m only in the top third the last two years. And to prove that statistical knowledge is a useful tool, I’m below average in the AFLW competition this year, having no idea ahead of time what the teams would be like!
To give you some background, I’ll share some of FOLLOWING FOOTBALL’s info from last year (and before), and then give you some educated guesses for 2017.
Team Ratings
We use a system like the chess world’s ELO rating system for all of the sports we cover (except college football), and our AFL system accurately picked 143 of 196 games last year (there were two ties in our ratings). The system’s actually pretty basic in principle: the difference in two team’s ratings (allowing for home field and a couple of other factors like injuries and turnaround time) should predict the final score differential. Whatever the difference between the prediction and the real outcome turns out to be is divided by eight, added to one rating and subtracted from the other. Here are the starting ratings for each team for both 2016 and coming into 2017:
Sydney Swans à started 2016 season at 63.2; starts 2017 before the JLT series at 81.3.
GWS Giants à 44.9; 75.1.
Adelaide Crows à 61.3; 73.8.
Western Bulldogs à 55.9; 69.9.
Geelong Cats à 52.3; 68.1.
West Coast Eagles à 82.1; 62.5.
Hawthorn Hawks à 88.0; 59.8.
Collingwood Magpies à 45.8; 55.5.
Port Adelaide Power à 63.2; 54.5.
North Melbourne ‘Roos à 61.4; 50.4.
St. Kilda Saints à 28.0; 48.5.
Melbourne Demons à 33.8; 42.6.
Carlton Blues à 21.1; 33.3.
Richmond Tigers à 61.4; 32.8.
Gold Coast Suns à 31.1; 31.3.
Fremantle Dockers à 57.7; 30.3.
Essendon Bombers à 22.3; 21.4.
Brisbane Lions à 26.3; 8.9.
An average rating is 50.0. In fact, with the AFLW starting from scratch this season, we started the eight teams with that fifty rating and have gone from there. As of week four, here’s where the eight teams stand: Adelaide (60.3); Brisbane (55.3); Carlton (54.2); Melbourne (53.0); Collingwood (45.9); Western (45.6); Fremantle (43.6); and GWS (42.1). At this point, of course, it’s a lousy predictor – the system’s only batting .500 so far. But it’s a long term system, and it should continue to become more effective as time goes by.
Year to Year changes
We search records back into the early reaches of the VFL, and there are some important patterns that are worth noting if you’re planning on trying to predict the future.
As is often noted, since 2008 there have been either two or three teams that dropped out of the finals (and, coincidentally, the exact same number has moved into finals! Who’d’ve thunk it?). What’s less well known was that in the last ten years, six of the 14th place finishers jumped all the way into the finals the next year (and St. Kilda almost made it last year, missing 8th by percentage). In comparison, only five ninth place teams have made the piddling leap into finals the next year.
Fremantle last year became the first top-of-the-ladder team to miss finals since 1993’s Bombers placed tenth in 1994. By contrast, the wooden spoon winners have often made finals: West Coast went from 2010’s spoon to fourth in 2011, and in consecutive years, Melbourne in 1997 and Brisbane in 1998 both jumped from 16th into top four appearances the next year. Richmond almost joined this club, placing last in 2007 before jumping to (ah, of course) ninth the next year.
Here’s something worth tracking for 2017 and beyond: teams that have a higher percentage than their record would predict usually place higher the next year – it happens 2 out of every 3 times – and teams that have a lower percentage than their record would predict virtually alwaysplace lower the next year (over 85% of the time).
The higher percentage rule is really only effective looking at middle of the pack teams who stray from the even scoring of the 100% mark. Teams at the top or bottom of the ladders are going to vary a great deal more than those in the middle just by nature – that defines their competition more than their own prospects. But if this theory holds for 2017, Port Adelaide should make finals this year (which I truly don’t think they will. But do I have the guts to go against my own metric?). Nobody else was significantly off center in 2016.
The lower percentage rule works all over the place, although when it fails it tends to fail towards the bottom because, let’s face it, they’re already a bad team at that point. If this holds, Hawthorn should drop precipitously (and I think they will – and so did they, hence the radical trades they made in the off-season).
What do I see happening in 2017?
Our FOLLOWING FOOTBALL forecasts don’t stray that far from everyone else’s. It’s pretty easy to see Greater Western Sydney as being the odds-on favorite for the upcoming season; by almost any metric, they’re head-and-shoulders above the competition. Only injuries or a run like Western had last finals series should stop them from at least being there at the end.
I’m still thinking Western has the edge over Sydney in balance across the pitch, and the other three teams who have an outside shot at the title in my estimation are Geelong, Adelaide, and maybe the West Coast Eagles. Their reps as ‘flat track bullies’ is completely deserved, and the only reason I include them is if somehow Sam Mitchell changes that culture from within this season. I don’t think the Cats have the defenders nor the Crows the midfield depth to defeat enough of the top three to make the Grand Final.
The fight to be knocked out in the first week of finals comes down to St Kilda, Melbourne, Hawthorn, and Port Adelaide. The Saints and Demons are on their way up; both look much better already this summer, and the “two-new-teams-in” rule works to their advantage. I have more faith in the Hawks than the Power, so I’m placing these teams in the order listed, and when the dust settles I don’t think it’ll be a percentage difference that keeps 9th from 8th this year, unless Hawthorn’s new boys gel faster than expected.
Below that, it’s hard to know what Essendon will look like this year. So far this summer, the signs are good, certainly better than Fremantle,whom the Eagles annihilated on their first hit out, and Collingwood, who beat the Dons only because the latter tired out in the fourth their first game out.
I was ready to drop both North Melbourne and Gold Coast well below those three, but they’ve both showed strong signs of life this spring. The Kangas have found some youth that seems to work together well (heard a commentator suggest that getting rid of four legends was the only way they’d be able to force themselves to find out if they had the future here or not, since the vets might never be outplayed), and the Suns picked four usable parts with those top ten draft picks (and the injuries have only hit one Day so far this season). Richmond’s looked decent this pre-season and might move up a couple of places if injuries hit the Suns and others. So, put these six teams bunched up in slots 11-16 in this order: Essendon, Collingwood, Fremantle, Gold Coast, Richmond, and North, based on the quality of teams. When you see the records, you’ll realize how the schedule adjusts that when they actually play the games.
The bottom two are pretty easy. Carlton looks to take a step back from evidence, and even taking two steps forward, Brisbane has a long way to go to climb out of the cellar this season.
MY 2017 LADDER. I played out the season in my head and came up with this projection:
GWS (18-4) – Western (17-5) – Adelaide (17-5) – Sydney (16-6; tougher schedule) – Geelong (16-6) – West Coast (14-8) – St Kilda (14-8) – Melbourne (13-9) – Hawthorn (12-10; could win 14!) – Port Adelaide (10-12) – Essendon (9-12) – Gold Coast (8-14; injury dependent as always!) – Collingwood (7-15) – Richmond (7-15; some winnable games early) – Fremantle (6-16) – North Melbourne (5-17; but they could win more if the new kids gel soon) – Carlton (5-17) – Brisbane (4-18).
MY 2017 FINALS BRACKETS:
They should run to form for the most part: GWS and Western will host and beat Sydney and Adelaide respectively in two exciting qualifying finals; Geelong and West Coast eliminates the two newbies in Melbourne and St Kilda, respectively, just on the experience factor alone.
Second weekend, it would be West Coast going to Adelaide and getting beaten, and Geelong going to Sydney and… well, I could see that one going either way, frankly, depending on health.
Third weekend, the big question becomes: Do the two teams (Giants and Bulldogs) get rusty having played just once in four weeks? If not, presume a GWS/Western final. They should be the class of the AFL this year.
Who wins? If it’s close towards the end, I’d lean to the defending champs who’ve been there before. If GWS can get a 13+ point lead going into the fourth quarter, as they should, they’ll definitely win. Any lead and they should win, but I wouldn’t feel good about being in a close game with the Bulldogs after last year’s September magic!
Thanks for reading!
Sunday, February 5, 2017
Aussie Rules season is upon us!
It's rare that I get to enjoy my favorite sport this early in the calendar year. The men haven't even begun their pre-season yet - that's still three weeks away. But this season marks the inaugural campaign of the AFLW, the women's version of the top professional Australian Football League.
And after a first weekend of games between the eight teams involved (eight of the eighteen mens' teams bid and won the right to have synergistic women's clubs alongside), everyone involved should be insanely pleased with the way the product was accepted by the public.
The best example was the first one, the opening game between longtime rivals Carlton and Collingwood on Friday night, AEDT. (They're currently eighteen hours ahead of us, so a 7:45 kickoff there was not only still daylight down under, where it's still summer, but translated to a 1:45 a.m. start time for those of me in the Mountain time zone here in the U.S. And yes, I set my alarm.)
The match was originally scheduled for a small, community venue that seats two thousand people, which gives a sense of what the AFL was expecting for interest in the product. The cost of attendance was free, with a possible small parking fee depending on where the field involved was located. With the build-up to the season approaching, it became evident that they might very well exceed that capacity, so they moved it to Ikon Park, which seats twenty thousand. Surely THAT would cover any eventuality.
Whoops. Not quite.
It turns out that at eight p.m., the fire marshall demanded that the AFL close the gates, with an overflow attendance of 24,500 patrons inside and another few thousand outside, to whom AFL CEO Gillan McLaughlin had to go apologize for. (Personally, I don't see why - they'd already done everything they thought was necessary to accommodate the crowd!) Entrance to the AFLW games is free, and except for parking at sites where it's scarce, so is the parking.
The other three games this weekend were also sellouts in the six to fifteen thousand range, leaving the AFL with the pleasant problem of trying to move future games on the seven-week fixture to more appropriate sites. The quality of play was at least as good as I expected, and is reminiscent of watching women's college basketball: the intelligence of play was clearly there, the tactics were solid, but the athleticism wasn't as impressive as the men's game. The games are shorter, and the scores are lower, but none of the games were competitive: the scores were 46-11, 48-12, 44-12, and 25-10 (and that was close because of the horrid weather). If that stays the norm, it'll be as hard to stay involved as it is any other time you have a wide range of team quality. U Conn is on the verge of its 100th straight win, which makes for boring games, but the rest of women's teams are much more balanced.
As for the men, they start their preseason in three weeks. The season itself starts on March 23rd, with the finals series beginning in September. I'll post a season preview in mid-March, to try and get y'all intrigued, but most experts are expecting this year's Grand Final to be a rematch of last year's prelim final between the up-and-coming GWS Giants and the now-champion Western Bulldogs, a game that the Doggies won 89-83 in one of the best games of the year in Sydney. Other title contenders include Geelong, Adelaide, West Coast and Sydney,
And after a first weekend of games between the eight teams involved (eight of the eighteen mens' teams bid and won the right to have synergistic women's clubs alongside), everyone involved should be insanely pleased with the way the product was accepted by the public.
The best example was the first one, the opening game between longtime rivals Carlton and Collingwood on Friday night, AEDT. (They're currently eighteen hours ahead of us, so a 7:45 kickoff there was not only still daylight down under, where it's still summer, but translated to a 1:45 a.m. start time for those of me in the Mountain time zone here in the U.S. And yes, I set my alarm.)
The match was originally scheduled for a small, community venue that seats two thousand people, which gives a sense of what the AFL was expecting for interest in the product. The cost of attendance was free, with a possible small parking fee depending on where the field involved was located. With the build-up to the season approaching, it became evident that they might very well exceed that capacity, so they moved it to Ikon Park, which seats twenty thousand. Surely THAT would cover any eventuality.
Whoops. Not quite.
It turns out that at eight p.m., the fire marshall demanded that the AFL close the gates, with an overflow attendance of 24,500 patrons inside and another few thousand outside, to whom AFL CEO Gillan McLaughlin had to go apologize for. (Personally, I don't see why - they'd already done everything they thought was necessary to accommodate the crowd!) Entrance to the AFLW games is free, and except for parking at sites where it's scarce, so is the parking.
The other three games this weekend were also sellouts in the six to fifteen thousand range, leaving the AFL with the pleasant problem of trying to move future games on the seven-week fixture to more appropriate sites. The quality of play was at least as good as I expected, and is reminiscent of watching women's college basketball: the intelligence of play was clearly there, the tactics were solid, but the athleticism wasn't as impressive as the men's game. The games are shorter, and the scores are lower, but none of the games were competitive: the scores were 46-11, 48-12, 44-12, and 25-10 (and that was close because of the horrid weather). If that stays the norm, it'll be as hard to stay involved as it is any other time you have a wide range of team quality. U Conn is on the verge of its 100th straight win, which makes for boring games, but the rest of women's teams are much more balanced.
As for the men, they start their preseason in three weeks. The season itself starts on March 23rd, with the finals series beginning in September. I'll post a season preview in mid-March, to try and get y'all intrigued, but most experts are expecting this year's Grand Final to be a rematch of last year's prelim final between the up-and-coming GWS Giants and the now-champion Western Bulldogs, a game that the Doggies won 89-83 in one of the best games of the year in Sydney. Other title contenders include Geelong, Adelaide, West Coast and Sydney,
Wednesday, December 14th, 2016
Bet The “Under”
Here’s
a lesson in human nature that could make you some extra money…
Gambling
is legal in Australia – in particular, sports betting is legal. (During the season I match my prediction
ability with the oddsmakers at CrownBet, the leading licensed brokers for the
land Down Under, just as I do with the Vegas lines on American sports.) And
one of the standard betting parlays available before the season begins is the
over-under on how many wins each team will accrue during the season. (Usually, this target number has a “half” on
it, like 8 ½, so that there’s no “pushed” results – although in the NFL, there
are already four teams with ties on their records, so that’s not a foolproof
system.)
I’ve been looking at the lines for the Aussie footy league
for 2017 – GWS, being the favorite this year, has an over/under of 15.5 (they play 22 games, so that means a record
of 15-7 is under their projection, and 16-6 is over). Similarly, the
Brisbane Lions are the ‘favorite’ for the wooden spoon, a moniker for the last
place finisher, and as such their over/under target is only 4 ½. (They won just three games last year.)
Here’s the thing: the bettors
there are doing the exact same thing EVERY league and EVERY broker and EVERY
set of fans do. If you add up the
over/under betting lines? There are more wins than there are games.
It’s only by 2.5 in the AFL, but that’s enough to skew the results.
What that means is on the
average, every fan is optimistic, even when betting.
So, if you want to make some easy money, here’s what I’d
suggest: bet the under for EVERY team,
all eighteen. I have no idea which ones will win and which won’t (alright, I have some hunches – bet the under for
Brisbane), but it seems like it should be almost impossible for more
teams to come in OVER versus the number that come in UNDER. The only way that happens, mathematically,
is if four or five teams all come in way
under, leaving the rest of the wins to be spread evenly among the
other teams. It might happen – but then again it’s just as likely to work in
your favor, too, where a few big winners hit the over and leave a dozen or so
teams under their mark.
And
all of this is true regardless of what league it is – NFL, NBA, MLB,
NHL; it doesn’t matter. In the CFL season just
concluded, the nine team league had a similar 2.5 game optimism from its
bettors, which for the mathematically inclined means it was twice as
severe with only half the teams to spread that difference among. Not
surprisingly, six teams were UNDER their projections, and only three
teams were OVER. You would have made a 33% profit on your investment. I
went back and ran the same simulation on last year's AFL predictions:
three pushes (teams won exactly what was expected) and the rest broke
8-7 in our favor. So, a 5.6% return on investment. Better than nothing!
(I’d double check before I bet to be sure, and here’s
how you do that – add up all the
projected win totals, and divide the total by the number of teams in the
league. This should be exactly HALF of the number of games each team plays –
because for every win, there’s also a loss. If it’s HIGHER than that ‘half’
number, you’ve got yourself an optimistic bunch of bettors – go with the UNDER
across the board. Theoretically, it could be LOWER instead, in
which case you could bet the OVER across the board for the same results.)
Sunday, December 11, 2016
A little sneak peak at the Australian Football League 2017 season
Last year, six teams won at least fifteen games, the best of which won only seventeen, so it was a wide-open finals series...and then NONE of those six won! The Doggies were up among them for most of the season, but late injuries bode badly for the finals. Despite that, they beat the hottest team (West Coast) by forty in the first round (on the road!), then they ended the four-peat dreams of defending champion Hawthorn (on the road!), THEN, they defeated the up and coming youngsters from Greater Western by one late goal (on the road!), and finally upset the season-long leaders, the high-paid Sydney Swans by a score of 89-67 (that's pretty normal: the high eighties is about the league-wide average per-game-per-team score in footy).
In 2017, those upstarts from Greater Western Sydney, twice "wooden spoon" winners in 2011-12 as the new kids on the block, and in their fifth year of existence leaped from the middle of the pack to one game off the top of the ladder and (like I said) one goal from the Grand Final. So this year, they are both the bettors and our favorite to win it all in 2017.
Here are the projected placements for the 2017 AFL season, starting in March and ending on the last Saturday in September:
Crown Bet oddsmakers Following Football ratings '16 My best guess Last Year W/L
1. GWS Giants 1. Sydney (81.2) 1. GWS Giants 1. Sydney (17-5)
2. Western Bulldogs 2. GWS (75.1) 2. Western BD 2. Geelong (17-5)
3. Sydney Swans 3. Adelaide (73.8) 3. Sydney 3. Hawthorn (16-6)
4. Adelaide Crows 4. Western (69.9) 4. St. Kilda 4. GWS (16-6)
5. Geelong Cats 5. Geelong (68.1) 5. Geelong 5. Adelaide (16-6)
6. West Coast Eagles 6. West Coast (62.5) 6. Melbourne 6. West Coast (15-7)
7. Hawthorn Hawks 7. Hawthorn (59.8) 7. Adelaide 7. Western (14-8***)
8. Melbourne Demons 8. Collingwood (55.5) 8. Hawthorn 8. No. Melbourne (12-10)
9. Fremantle Dockers 9. Port Adelaide (54.5) 9. West Coast 9. St, Kilda (12-10)
10. St. Kilda Saints 10. No. Melbourne (50.4) 10. Essendon 10. Port Adelaide (10-12)
11. Port Adelaide Power 11. St. Kilda (48.5) 11. Carlton 11. Melbourne
12. Collingwood Magpies 12. Melbourne (42.6) 12. Fremantle 12. Collingwood (9-13)
13. Essendon Bombers 13. Carlton (33.3) 13. Gold Coast 13. Richmond (8-14)
14. Richmond Tigers 14. Richmond (32.8) 14. N. Melbourne 14. Carlton (7-15)
15. No. Melbourne Kangas 15. Gold Coast (31.3) 15. Port Adelaide 15. Gold Coast (6-16)
16. Gold Coast Suns 16. Fremantle (30.3) 16. Collingwood 16. Fremantle (4-18)
17. Carlton Blues 17. Essendon (21.4) 17. Richmond 17. Brisbane (3-19)
18. Brisbane Lions 18. Brisbane (8.9) 18. Brisbane 18. Essendon (3-19)
For all of you 'footy virgins', I'm hoping to expose you to the beauty of my favorite sport over the course of time! A great place to start is www.afl.com.au, the official website of the AFL, which has a remarkably objective view of the league and sport considering its parentage! There are lots of videos to access from there as well to give you a taste of this high-flying combination of Gaelic football, American football, soccer, rugby, and basketball!
Here's a link to the article I wrote about six weeks ago, describing the eighteen teams each in comparison to an American sports franchise to give you a feel for which teams represent what kind of fans - and maybe in doing so, helping you choose a franchise to follow. (Frankly, I try NOT to stay rooted in one team in any league I follow - it opens up so many more possibilities as a viewer!)
As with the NFL, FCS, FBS, and to some extent the CFL, I'll try to keep you abreast of the goings on down under - maybe more so, because the AFL information isn't as readily available in the States if you're not actively seeking it out on the Internet.
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Here's Your ALL-PURPOSE INTRODUCTION to the eighteen pro AUSSIE RULES football teams!
Some of the basics are described in my first post on the subject, and it and all of my Aussie Rules posts are found here, on its own page, so as not to clutter up the rest of our posts (or vice versa!).
But I'd like to share some information about the major league version today - the Australian Football League (or AFL, not to be confused with the US's "Arena Football League", another high-scoring, fast-paced version of the sport, differing dramatically from footy in that footy leagues are not bankrupt or lacking in attendance). The AFL currently contains eighteen teams, scattered from Perth to Queensland but with the lions' share in the league's origin point of Melbourne, in the state of Victoria. In fact, the league's origin was as the "Victorian Football League", which thirty years ago or so changed its name to reflect its growing footprint, and eventually swallowed up the other major leagues around the country. (Many of those, including a version of the VFL, still exist as 'minor league' football, with a similar structure to some extent as our minor league baseball does here.)
While as I noted recently, the 2016 Premier is the Western Bulldogs (a Chicago Cubs-like story, having gone 62 years since last winning the Grand Final), the recent decade or so has been dominated by three teams: the Geelong Cats, the Sydney Swans, and the three-time-defenders coming into this season, the Hawthorn Hawks. AFL isn't like the NBA, where a very few teams have a real chance to win in any season, but neither is it the NFL, where any team can win any season, almost unpredictably.
So, for your benefit as you dip your toe in this world halfway around the world, let me give you some American analogies for each team. Imperfect though they may be, I hope you'll find them enlightening and entertaining. Enjoy!
Here's a set of links showing how the teams line up with their American counterparts...
The ADELAIDE Crows = the Minnesota Vikings (of the NFL) - click here!
The BRISBANE Lions = the Los Angeles Lakers (of the NBA) - click here!
The CARLTON Blues = the Chicago Bears (of the NFL) - click here!
The COLLINGWOOD Magpies = the New York Yankees (of MLB) - click here!
The ESSENDON Bombers = the Oakland Athletics (of MLB) - click here!
The FREMANTLE Dockers = the Kansas City Royals (of MLB) - click here!
The GEELONG Cats = the New England Patriots (of the NFL) - click here!
The GOLD COAST Suns = the Cleveland Cavaliers (of the NBA) - click here!
The GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY Giants = the Los Angeles Clippers (of the NBA) - click here!
The HAWTHORN Hawks = the San Antonio Spurs (of the NBA) - click here!
The MELBOURNE Demons = the Oakland Raiders (of the NFL) - click here!
The NORTH MELBOURNE Kangaroos = The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (of MLB) - click here!
The PORT ADELAIDE Power = the Oregon Ducks (of the NCAA FBS) - click here!
The RICHMOND Tigers = the San Diego Chargers (of the NFL) - click here!
The ST. KILDA Saints = the New York Jets (of the NFL) - click here!
The SYDNEY Swans = the Boston Red Sox (of MLB) - click here!
The WEST COAST Eagles = the Dallas Cowboys (of the NFL) - click here!
The WESTERN Bulldogs = the Chicago Cubs (of MLB) - click here!
As you progress through each club and its American doppelganger, we hope you'll come to understand more about the particular teams that represent the great sport of footy in Australia and around the world. Before the season starts next March, you'll get a firm background in the sport - and we'll provide content on the AFL page to help novices understand the sport.
Saturday, October 15, 2016
What IS Aussie Rules Footy?
Australian Rules Football is a cross between rugby, American football, Gaelic football, with a hint of soccer and even basketball thrown in for good measure. The AFL has eighteen teams in it, plays from March through September, with its Grand Final held annually on the last Saturday in September. Games are high scoring, high flying, rarely stopping, require athletic fitness and versatility from all of its players, and don't use padding to protect players from oncoming hits. (Physios take the field to tend to a wounded player without the game stopping for them in most cases.)
The games are four quarters long, approximately 25 minutes per quarter (although they utilize "stoppage time" similarly to soccer). Kicking the roundish football between the two tall posts is a "goal", worth six points; anything else between the outside, shorter poles is a "behind", worth only one. (They're sometimes referred to as "majors and minors" in scoring, too.)
Watch these clips for some basics in the manly art of Footy:
AFL explained
What is Australian Football?
I first started watching footy about a decade or more ago - when my first wife and I first had cable, we went for the big package so we could get a few particular channels she liked. One of the fringe benefits was the Fox International Sports channel (now "Fox Soccer" or something like that), and twice a week they broadcast Aussie Rules footy: one full game on one night, and a half-hour week-in-review highlights show on the other. I happened on it by accident, but I was hooked very quickly. The game's fast-paced and high scoring, what we love about most brands of basketball. It requires an amazing level of skill like baseball or hockey (or any number of world-class sports). It features hard hitting and tackling like American football or rugby. And it demands the cardio-respiratory fitness that soccer or track or tennis require.
(And it's a manly sport, the way that only Aussies can create their sports! Having said that, the AFL Womens League starts play this February!)
We'll write more about my favorite sport as the weeks wear on - the eighteen team Australian Football League (AFL) just completed its season two weeks back, when 100,000 fans filled the Melbourne Cricket Grounds (that's right - the game's played on an oval field three times the size of a gridiron!) to watch the Western Bulldogs win their first Grand Final championship in 62 years! And there are so many really cool details about the game for us to discuss: fight songs, the "ruck", the largest pom-pons in human possession, "memberships", home games in other cities (or countries!), the conflict of vibes between the Victorian and non-Victorian teams, strange mascots (and city names - ever really look at an Australian map?)...and so on and so forth...Crikey!
No comments:
Post a Comment