LEIGH MATTHEWS: AFL finals need shake-up so teams that finish first like Sydney Swans are better rewarded

The pre-finals bye weekend has been contentious since it was introduced in 2016.

It is now primarily to give clear air to the AFLW’s opening round and to give AFL teams a disincentive to rest players in the last round — which is why it was originally introduced.

Sydney, having locked in top spot, could have been tempted to rest half their team in the last round if there wasn’t the bye last weekend.

But I believe if we are going to have a bye weekend then it should be between the preliminary final and grand final.

It gives both teams in the grand final more time to organise themselves and remember nearly half the competition are non-Victorian clubs.

It’s a lot harder for them to manage their players after winning the preliminary final and needing to be in Melbourne by the following Thursday to attend Friday’s grand final parade.

Just as importantly, with the AFL-imposed 12-day non-playing period for even minor concussions, it is only a matter of time before a player misses a grand final after receiving a head knock in a prelim.

When this inevitably occurs I suspect having the week off before the grand final will become a greater priority than it currently is.

Aside from when or if the finals bye should occur, there has also been plenty of debate about changing the finals to a 10-team system with a wild-card round.

I think the wild-card weekend concept to replace the bye weekend with the teams placed seventh to 10th playing off for the bottom two spots in the final eight seems to me to be a wasted opportunity.

While I am not opposed to going to a 10-team final series, configuring a better final series over a five-week final period should be explored.

To me, even with eight teams, there must be a better system.

The Swans finished on top and play the other Sydney team, GWS, who finished fourth so they have the home-ground advantage, but they don’t actually have a home-state advantage.

Port Adelaide, who finished second, have both the home ground and home state advantage against the third-placed Geelong.

The AFL finals is a bit like a Formula 1 race where the qualifying spots are like starting positions on the grid, but instead of it being decided by a couple of days of qualifying, in our system we play 23 games over a gruelling 25 weeks to decide the order of the eight finalists.

I have always believed that finishing on top as minor premier after the six-month campaign is a greater achievement than having a few good weeks in September and winning the premiership.

I could name the premiership-winning team going back 50 years, but I couldn’t tell you who finished top of the ladder three or four years ago.

All the glory in our game is decided in late September, so better rewarding and acknowledging the top team at the end of the home and away games should be a priority.

The AFL have announced the premiership captain will in future receive the Ron Barassi medal.

This is a great decision but a big footy name such as Barassi could easily be the name for a trophy to be awarded annually to the top team at the end of the home and away fixtures. Fittingly this year it would be Sydney.

We also need to think outside the box ... what if the top team gets the choice of who to play of the teams finishing third or the fourth?

I would be confident that if John Longmire was brutally honest he would prefer to play the Victorian-based Geelong than their cross-town rival.

And the other thing that I believe should happen, even in the current system, is the top team should maintain a home-state advantage throughout the whole finals series up until the grand final at the MCG.

So if the Swans lost the qualifying final, but then won the semifinal they would retain the home-ground advantage in the preliminary final which currently goes to the two teams that win the qualifying finals.

In the evolution of the VFL/AFL final series, it would seem the advantage of finishing on top has been reduced over the decades.

Back in the 1970s and 80s, the top team had two chances to win their way into the grand final.

I can still remember vividly in 1990 when the Collingwood team I coached beat Essendon in the semifinal and went straight into the grand final. Essendon went to the preliminary final, won it, and we played them again in the grand final.

The Bulldogs were the last team in 2016 to win from outside the top four, so there is still a statistical advantage to finishing in the top four, but the advantage is not great enough for the team that finishes on top.

The AFL clearly want as much equalisation in the system as possible, which this year helped create many close games and the most even competition we have ever seen.

I am a big fan of equalisation during the home and away fixtures, but in the finals excellence during the season should be better rewarded.

We probably are headed towards a 10-team finals system as we expand to 19 teams with Tasmania entering in 2028 and a 20th team sure to follow not long after that.

I can live with that, but we should be opening our eyes to a better system as I just don’t think our current final eight is perfect. We might be able to make it better.

What we’re doing with the bye is we are rewarding the teams that have to win every week to win the grand final, ie the bottom half of the top eight.

The bye weekend provides more advantage to the fifth to eighth-placed teams, than it does to the first to fourth-placed teams.

The two winners of the qualifying finals tend to be the favourites, but going into the preliminary final, they’ve had a bye, then played and then had another bye before the grand final.

They don’t have a great advantage over the team that’s played the previous two weeks going into the preliminary final.

They will have an advantage if they get to the grand final, given they’ve had a week off before the preliminary final. It doesn’t help you as much on the preliminary final weekend, but it helps you a lot on grand final day if you’ve had a break during September.

WHO WILL WIN IT

Speaking of the bottom half of the eight and who could win a flag from there, Brisbane, the Bulldogs and Hawthorn have been playing as well as anyone over the closing stages of the season.

These three teams have played as well as the top-four teams in the last two months. But they start the final series from the knockout position, which creates a very difficult task of winning four games over four weeks against the cream of the competition.

Hawthorn have played superbly during the last half of the season and have the running power best suited to the MCG.

I’m tipping the Hawks to overcome the Bulldogs to win that elimination final.

Carlton have staggered into September but look likely to field their best team on paper for many weeks.

But all these returning players are coming off injuries, so it raises the question about how match-conditioned they are. The Blues have got more question marks than anybody and travelling to the Gabba to take on the Lions is a huge ask.

Brisbane have been very good over the last three months to finish fifth after being second only a few weeks ago.

But the Lions have been quite inconsistent within their last few games. They have started brilliantly but faded late, which is never a good sign.

Carlton should be rank outsiders against a Brisbane team whose best is as good as anyone’s.

At the top of the finals tree it’s hard to go past the Swans and Port Adelaide.

Sydney have the advantage of playing the Giants at the SCG and Port have a big home-ground advantage at Adelaide Oval against the Cats.

If you talk about consistency, the Swans have claimed top spot with 17 wins but they’ve suddenly been a little bit less potent in the last third of the season.

Part of their drop-off has been a reduced output from their star recruit Brodie Grundy. Early in the season the big ruckman was outstanding as a competitor in the ruck duels, but even more valuable as an extra ground level midfielder around the stoppages.

That second-effort energy has largely disappeared as the season has progressed.

He’s played every game in a tough and physically demanding position. He was very important for the Swans in the first half of the year when he, and his team, were outstanding.

Can he produce that same kind of level in the finals? Maybe the week off will help rejuvenate the big fella physically and mentally.

I still think that the Swans at their best have been the best team and start the finals as my premiership favourite.

This time of year is not only when we find out who the best September team is, but who will win the much coveted Brownlow Medal.

Nick Daicos, Marcus Bontempelli and Patrick Cripps are naturally the leading contenders and Lachie Neale could also be up there because he has historically polled well.

The umpires’ votes decide the Brownlow but regardless of who wins that award, my MVP for this season is Daicos.