Who Actually had the Toughest Draw in 2024???

[@JohnHenrySMH]

To add to the Crow's bad luck, they also had a bit of a tough time with the bye. At one point they were playing teams that had already had two byes while they hadn't even had one yet.

[@veraxmendax3503]

Awesome Video mate. I think a few people in the comments may have let the point go over their heads. You're spot on that the AFL media don't look deep enough into the fixture once the season is over. It's the same crap every year...teams that just miss the top 4 have "under performed" and teams that miss the 8 are just labelled as bad or disappointments. The only proper way to analyze a fixture is retroactively and you have done that well. Keep up the good work!

[@aflinsight2023]

Appreciate it mate! The fixture will never be perfect. All teams have their hurdles to get over, whether it be travel, cumulative rest or strength of double ups. Some teams just have more and higher hurdles to jump over and imo all of this needs to be taken into consideration when assessing a teams performance, which the media never seem to do. Thanks for watching!

[@BrandonStephen-p6q]

Good video mate. The biggest problem is Eddie McGuire he is telling the afl to not schedule Collingwood in Geelong ever again. Eddie McGuire needs to be tied up and someone to tell the afl no more compromise and everyone plays in Geelong. Also rotate the double ups as well as other teams playing teams in different venues

[@frustralia4293]

Listen, you have quite literally the shittest "oval" in the competition. NO ONE wants to play at Kardinia Park. It's pathetic. Geelong supporters would prefer to play at the MCG if they had any brains.

[@_..Justin-Case.._]

@@frustralia4293boo fucken who, fair is fair. If everyone else has to play there eventually then Collingwood has to aswell.

[@BrandonStephen-p6q]

@frustralia4293 i don't go for Geelong. I go for Carlton. I am saying it as a neutral supporter. Eddie McGuire and Collingwood supporters in general are spoiled bloody brats I don't enjoy the competition anymore it is rigged! Can't beat the 70s!

[@BakedPotato-v8b]

This is an outstanding video! So many twists and turns in a short time 😅 appreciate all the effort you put into this banger.

[@paddyobrien1643]

I appreciate the playing twice is a huge factor, but the non vic teams & ongoing travel makes all their fixtures the hardest each year, regardless of team played

[@aflinsight2023]

100%. I went in depth into the difficulties non vic teams face when I did a video on the farcical nature of the fixture a few months back. Thanks for watching

[@craigcombridge6353]

Just ask Dimma

[@gustaaf1892]

Good video. That's a nice simple way to do a post season review. On paper North has been handed another hard draw in 2025 for a team that has been a cellar dweller for so long. We'll have to wait until the end of the season to see if it turned out to be that way.

[@psyrick-o6f]

Great video, I have been doing some amateur AFL analysis and yeah even looking back you can see parts of the year where "wretched form" teams just have and unlucky run of matches against unexpected contenders. I did a bit of a stats overview but sometimes you needed to see if teams where able to pull off their gameplan against their tougher opponents, or in losses. I think overall every stat needs a context and the AFL is a very complex game, it's much easier in the media to blame one or two things then to dig into the complexities that make a season. Especially for this season you are right the line between 1st and 15th was razer thin and only the Eagles, North and Tigers performed extremely outside the standards of an AFL team consistantly.

[@SamFitzgerald22]

Great video! Really great analysis on the fixtures, and easy to follow and understand. Unfortunately I don’t think the fixture will get much better for a while (especially when Tasmania joins and there will be at least one bye per round).

[@Tosicc567]

Yeah thats going to make the fixturing woefully bad

[@kelstra1997]

Absolutely excellent insight into the inequities of the AFL system. I do make the point that while your main criteria is the teams that a particular team plays twice, there are other factors such as where a team plays those teams that they play only once. A Victorian team has a much harder task playing a team like GWS at Giant's stadium than they do on the MCG for example. As you rightly point out, the whole competition is severely compromised - a situation that will only get worse with the introduction of a 19th team. I don't have a huge amount of faith in the AFL's ability to create a more equitable system which, combined with the fiasco of a very much less than perfect umpiring standard, doesn't auger well for the future of our game.

[@OverconfidentCromSupporter]

Thankyou!

[@Dircashede]

Something worth noting as well is that the double-ups are be a huge factor in determining those ladder positions after the fact. Eg. Fremantle lost to a top 8 side in Carlton, but if they'd won, then Carlton wouldn't be a top 8 side, and it'd be an unremarkable win against a bottom 10 side. I felt like Melbourne were hard-done by too. By Round 19, they were 10-8, with half of their losses doled out by Brisbane & Freo (both top 4 by that point). They were only 8 points behind 2nd place then, so they could've looked a formidable side under different circumstances, but now it's a lucky treat for the teams that played them twice. It'd be interesting to see a ladder where the results of the double up games are combined together into just 1 W/L/D, might look a little truer to club form.

[@MarkSmith-rb5ep]

Collingwood seems to get one of the hardest draws every year, yet carlton, richmond and sydney always get seem to get very easy draws..

[@_..Justin-Case.._]

Did you even watch this video? Richmond did not have an easy fixture last year at all.

[@MarkSmith-rb5ep]

@_..Justin-Case.._ Yes i watched it. Richmond was high up there. I based it on the last 10 years combined.

[@mikn3553]

i mean didn't the afl say teams that go well will not have double-ups with bottom-end teams Carlton plays West Coast and North twice after each other as well as Hawthorn Yeah the Hawthorn played finals but who knows what happens next year with them

[@TheFuzzyEarmuffs]

Great video. The AFL media is such a fishbowl and are so starved for news at the end of the season, I'm surprised that your level of analysis doesn't feature in the off season

[@aflinsight2023]

The AFL Media are so lazy, no substance.

[@ilikefatchicks123]

Would be interesting to see a weighted differential between home, away & neutral games factored into the double up matches stats. I.e Dogs getting to pay an "away" game against Carlton at Marvel, vice versa for a home final at the MCG.

[@RobKieranz]

Very interesting regarding the Hawks draw last season and how easy it was. Wonder how they will go with what should end up being a much harder one in 2025.

[@aflinsight2023]

Definitely, the hunters become the hunted!! Thanks for watching, appreciate it.

[@KyleHayes-h2t]

Brisbane had the toughest draw, had to travel to Adelaide 3 times, Perth twice, Canberra’s once, Melbourne 5 times. In retrospect Collingwood the other grand finalist only left Melbourne 6 times across the year.

[@wino5086]

Yawn

[@ChrisAnderson42]

At least Brisbane have a decent Home Ground Advantage for their home games, Collingwood are playing their home games at a ground most teams play on multiple times during the year.

[@cliffbarclay5620]

I think the fairest way to assess the hardest draw is to award a maximum of 4 points between each team. If you play them twice each game is only for 2 points, then do the ladder from that. In fact the season should be run like that, then it doesn't matter who you play twice.

[@yondas5686]

It won't affect the final result a great deal and you may have already included it in your findings, but is it possible to remove the wins against the club of note when determining the hardest draw? Like gold coasts double up opponents had 51 wins, but how many wins did they get against gold coast combined. I'd be interested to see the results when accounting for the outcome of those games as weaker teams would likely be handing their double up opponents a good chunk of wins, whereas a team like Brisbane would have stopped opposition teams from getting wins on the board.

[@VintageTimeGems]

I love football, but there are too many teams in the competition. If you are lucky you may see your team win a grand final once a decade. For most you may have to wait longer. Bring back 12 teams like in the days of VFL. Now the AFL have to rig draws to get teams they want to play finals.

[@datzit9176]

Carlton have played bottom 4 sides 10 times over the past 3 years despite playing finals 2 of those years and finishing in a prelim. Once there is 20 clubs I hope we can just play each other once and slap a BYE round for everyone in the middle

[@rustedpig97]

A major factor in sport scheduling and fixturing should be eliminating as much influence that luck can have as possible. The AFL doesn’t do this

[@FluffyKing43]

The fact that there’s only a top 8 when there’s 18 teams makes it uneven either they need to bring in that wildcard round or make it a top 10 prepare for when Tassie come into the competition I’m pretty sure they’ve done it before when another team joined.

[@daviddevenny6005]

Very good insight,,need to get rid of xome teams,have top 4 only and play home and away to be fair

[@lammshanks6014]

Great video. Unfortunately the fixture will never be fair until you play each team once or each team twice home and away

[@aflinsight2023]

Thanks mate, agreed. Professional sport with an amateur administration. Thanks for watching.

[@SportsReplays]

The problem is it will interfere with the cricket season.

[@Johny-jy5vo]

If u play each team once still won’t be fair because play interstate team home or away is a big difference

[@danieljoyce4015]

Collingwood have another hard draw this year and finished 9th last season. I do not understand how that works

[@ross4970]

Teams playing each other twice should add the scores of both games I to the one result. Like soccer finals.

[@FluffyKing43]

Do a prediction based on the current fixture

[@Tosicc567]

I still cant get over the afl fixturing algorithm video and how they talked about it. It genuinely sounded like they didnt understand it themselves. Obviously the fixturing chosen before the year wont be correct considering teams dont perform exactly as expected, but having the fixture weight be based on multiple previous years I feel hasnt gone the best. At this rate just base it off the previous year

[@aup10]

If you are scraping into the finals, or just missed out, due to the draw, then you probably weren't good enough to win the comp anyway.

[@rustedpig97]

So you’re saying hawthorn were more deserving of a finals spot because they got to beat up on bottom 4 teams 7 times but Collingwood didn’t because they only missed out on %? That doesn’t add up.

[@aup10]

@@rustedpig97 So you're saying that if Collingwood scraped into the finals, they would have gone on and won? Sorry, they would only have been making up the numbers.

[@rustedpig97]

@ don’t know that for certain

[@aup10]

@ haha...okay...you live in your fantasy world. Good luck next year.

[@FluffyKing43]

Easy to gage after the season but to guess before is harder why in tf did they say Essendon had the hardest fixture at round 10 onwards I’m just gonna ignore fox now they have no clue.

[@fergulator7297]

U do realise U can't just go on double ups on whether a draw is hard or not,there's a lot more to it

[@liushuai2993]

I understand your concerns about who had how many wins, though when the AFL first released the draw... the season hadn't even started. Today is January 21, 2025. Who's gonna win this year? Who knows? Who's gonna get the spoon, same answer. The AFL have no clue who was gonna win because they didn't know that Sam Draper was gonna lay all over the ball in front of goal with ten seconds to go... against Adelaide. All of what you're saying is how the season turned out AFTER all the games had been played. You and others like you cannot be critical of how the ladder turned out, if Matthew Nicks looses his job... then he looses his job. Carlton speared Ratten, Suns hunted Rodney Eade... West Coast dispensed with Adam Simpson. Life has continued for all these blokes. No one ever denied that the AFL is a brutal industry, Dyson Heppell played for how many years, and never got anywhere near winning a final... he simply came along at the wrong time. Though there was Jimmy Hird, had only played 31 games and won two flags in the process... Jimmy came at the Right time. Again: From what you're saying, you're an Adelaide supporter... if you want your team to win the flag, then the solution is simple. Win more games than anyone else.

[@aflinsight2023]

Cheers for the detailed reply. I'd just like to reiterate that I'm not being critical of how the ladder turned out. Like I said in the video, teams have no say over who or where they play and can only beat who is put in front of them. Those who made it deserved to be there. The general consensus that I've reached from the comments on both videos I've done on the fixture so far are that we are all in agreement that the fixture is severely compromised. The amount of teams, the amount of rounds played, the amount of travel and the amount of victorian teams vs non-vic teams all adds up to an inequality that there is no easy solution for. So if we all agree that the fixture is compromised BEFORE the season starts, surely there is scope to analyze just how compromised it turned out to be AFTER the season has finished??? Similarly, if the media put out articles detailing how difficult a teams fixture is before the season has begun, then there should be some detailed analysis after the season is done. And that was the main point of the video, to offer up a bit of perspective. Thanks for watching and I appreciate the feedback. PS: I am not a Crows supporter. People thought I was a Dogs supporter after the Beveridge/Cornes video. Some thought I was a Lions supporter after my multiple videos about them. I just try to take bias out of things and lay information out for people to make up their own minds about whatever the subject at hand is. All the best.

[@liushuai2993]

@@aflinsight2023 Hello again, it's all very interesting in itself in that there IS no easy fix... the system Is flawed. Some clubs will be perceived "to be getting it easy," (it was only a few years ago when Richmond were slaying everyone, they played their last 7 games of the HnA at the G. I mean, WTF?) Then there will ALWAYS be poor West Coast who haven't played a decent "Away game" for years. They simply can't do it, it's just not in em. So, what's the solution? I could say lots of things here, however diplomacy needs to take over occasionally (!!!) What's the solution? Tolerate the system, it's what it is... welcome to democracy. There's always winners, there'll always be losers. That will never change. I'm having a good day, so I won't leave comments like "If you don't like it, take up bowls." I'm not saying that at all! We all charge on mate, we all barrack for who we want to win... life will continue. Kane Cornes will still be making his comments, Ronny Lerner will still be shaking his head at Warwick Capper. None of that will change. Bring on the Footy!

[@aflinsight2023]

@ May your good day continue! I too cant wait for the footy to start, should be a cracking season.

[@ashleydyer3853]

You're so silly. Looking at this retrospectively is idiocy. If you wanna do it properly look at the form of the teams when they played. Records over the past 6 games or something like that. There is an easy solution. Make all double up games worth half as many ladder points. So you only win 2points for a win and 1 for a draw and then it actually evens up that problem quickly.

[@gustaaf1892]

Out of the box thinking. You should send that suggestion to AFL House. I think it has merit. You should probably also have to halve the scores for the double up games so as not to compromise the percentages.

[@KyleHayes-h2t]

Brisbane had the toughest draw, had to travel to Adelaide 3 times, Perth twice, Canberra’s once, Melbourne 5 times. In retrospect Collingwood the other grand finalist only left Melbourne 6 times across the year.