2016 Grand Final - Sydney Swans v Western Bulldogs - Saturday 1st October - MCG

[RaisyDaisy]

After such an epic finals performance by the Doggies are there really butt hurt people whinging about the free kick count?

Here's a theory - the Dogs get more free's because they get to the ball first and are manic with their pressure

Of course there's going to be missed calls and dodgy calls but it happens in every single match of the year and the only delusional people are those who think all of a sudden the grand final is going to be umpired to perfection

I can recall several free's that WB should have got but didn't - it goes both ways. Either way the umps didn't cost Sydney the flag

Enjoy that amazing finals performance for what it was because you may never see a team do what the Doggies did from 7th again

[Ricochet]

Enjoy that amazing finals performance for what it was because you may never see a team do what the Doggies did from 7th again

If the bye stays there's a good chance we will

[meow meow]

Enjoy that amazing finals performance for what it was because you may never see a team do what the Doggies did from 7th again

If the bye stays there's a good chance we will

Probably not. We're the first team to finish 7th with 15 wins so we were a very good team for 7th position. We're a top 4 list that just happened to finish 7th due to circumstances. GWS, Swans, Dogs and Crows are the 4 best teams in the comp regardless of what the ladder said. It's possible that it happens again but I think too much has been made of the bye. All it did was allow us to get some players back and perform like the top 4 team that we are. The 7th best team finishing 7th won't do what we did.

[RaisyDaisy]

Gary Ayres Medal for the best player of the final series

JPK 18 votes
JJ 17 votes
Heeney 15 votes
Picken 14 votes
Jelwood 12 votes

Congrats to JPK the inaugural winner

[Nige]

Picken robbed!

[Ricochet]

Picken robbed!

Robbed? dunno about that Nige. He was good, but JPK was huge all series. JJ and Heeney also very very good

[Jay]

Jenkins robbed!

[Ricochet]

Jenkins robbed!

;D ;D

[Nige]

Picken robbed!

Robbed? dunno about that Nige. He was good, but JPK was huge all series. JJ and Heeney also very very good

I stand by my statement.  :P

[Mat0369]

If the bye stays there's a good chance we will

I wan the bye between the prelim final and the Grand Final. Brownlow is on the Monday and all clubs attend, have the all Australian announcement on the Tuesday and then the players from interstate clubs in finals can fly home and prep for the GF and it won't be interrupted by these events. Then you can have the legends game on the Friday, women's on the Saturday and a state of origin/all stars game of the non grand final teams on the Sunday. That way no team has an advantage on rest heading into a GF, teams have a full week to prepare and rest for their opponents and you can still have the parade leading in on the Friday.

Robbed? dunno about that Nige. He was good, but JPK was huge all series. JJ and Heeney also very very good

I don't know how he got a vote in the first final after the hit early. He wasn't quite right that game and nowhere near the best on the ground.

[Ringo]

If the bye stays there's a good chance we will

I wan the bye between the prelim final and the Grand Final. Brownlow is on the Monday and all clubs attend, have the all Australian announcement on the Tuesday and then the players from interstate clubs in finals can fly home and prep for the GF and it won't be interrupted by these events. Then you can have the legends game on the Friday, women's on the Saturday and a state of origin/all stars game of the non grand final teams on the Sunday. That way no team has an advantage on rest heading into a GF, teams have a full week to prepare and rest for their opponents and you can still have the parade leading in on the Friday.

Great Idea Mat and worthy of consideration. Just wonder though if implemented would a weeks rest stiffle momentum. eg Bulldogs had all the momentum going into GF and if they had a break between prelim and GF would it have effected them. The other con being will we again have resting in Rd 23 not that it stopped some teams this year.

[jvalles69]

If the bye stays there's a good chance we will

I wan the bye between the prelim final and the Grand Final. Brownlow is on the Monday and all clubs attend, have the all Australian announcement on the Tuesday and then the players from interstate clubs in finals can fly home and prep for the GF and it won't be interrupted by these events. Then you can have the legends game on the Friday, women's on the Saturday and a state of origin/all stars game of the non grand final teams on the Sunday. That way no team has an advantage on rest heading into a GF, teams have a full week to prepare and rest for their opponents and you can still have the parade leading in on the Friday.

Great Idea Mat and worthy of consideration. Just wonder though if implemented would a weeks rest stiffle momentum. eg Bulldogs had all the momentum going into GF and if they had a break between prelim and GF would it have effected them. The other con being will we again have resting in Rd 23 not that it stopped some teams this year.

Great idea Mat!

Ringo, the bye before 1st weeks final stifled West Coasts momentum, so why is it different?  I'm 90% sure if the Bulldogs didn't have that bye to regroup and West Coast continued with their form the result would have been completely different.  Mat's idea makes more sense due to all the wind up stuff going on.

[ossie85]

The pointof the bye was to stop teams tanking the final round  (freo, north). A bye before the gf wouldn't fix that.

[RaisyDaisy]

Couldn't think of anything worse than having a week off between prelims and GF

Everything you said that could be done, should be done in the week off after RD23

[PowerBug]

The pointof the bye was to stop teams tanking the final round  (freo, north). A bye before the gf wouldn't fix that.

The easiest fix to all of them is to allow teams to name whichever 22 players they want on any given week. If a team wants to rest 11 players the week before finals, let them. They are acting in the best interests of the football club! And if it backfires the supporter base gets angry at them and they lose out.


If we keep a pre-finals bye then Brownlow night needs to be moved to a time within those two weeks so that all 18 clubs can attend.