Williams sells final 12 to AFL
Jake Niall | March 3, 2008
PORT Adelaide coach Mark Williams has submitted to the AFL a radical and in-depth proposal to expand the final eight into a final 12.
Further enhancing his reputation as a lateral-thinking successor to Kevin Sheedy among the coaches, Williams has given the AFL a detailed, power-point presentation in which he argues the case for the final 12, and against a defective final eight.
While the Williams proposal was developed before the AFL declared its intention to expand to 18 teams, the 2004 premiership coach yesterday said that an expansion in the number of teams made the final 12 more feasible.
"If 18 teams come in, it's just adapted totally, easily," Williams said. "It would sell a lot easier to the general public."
The AFL's broadcasting and commercial operations chief, Gillon McLachlan, who is responsible for the draw, and football operations manager Adrian Anderson are among the executives who have been shown Williams' final 12, which was presented back in December.
Under what he has called the "Guthrie-Williams Finals System" — the proposal was first developed by Williams' friend, software designer Rex Guthrie — Williams would have the top four teams given a bye in the first week of the finals.
Meanwhile, in that first week, the teams placed from fifth to 12th on the ladder would play one another in knock-out finals; in the second week, the top four would play the four survivors from the first week.
The final four would then play off — as in the present system of preliminary finals — before the grand final. Like America's National Football League, all finals are knockout.
Williams argued that the final 12 would greatly reduce the incentive for "tanking" by clubs who stand to benefit from a lowly finish.
"The bottom four teams are still fighting out too, so the tanking thing is almost reduced … there's certainly much more integrity in the whole process as it goes through," Williams said.
"They (the AFL officials) were interested in that. And obviously, it gives the broadcasting rights, the broadcasters more finals as well, which is a positive thing for the AFL.
"Round 21, fighting for the 13th, or 12th position, it's pretty exciting."
But the Port Adelaide coach's main argument was that the final 12 would be better than the eight because it properly rewarded the top two teams, which had not fared well under the present final eight system (2000-2007).
Williams and Guthrie put forward five separate versions for how the final 12 might work — all of them following the premise that the top four have a week off and that all matches were elimination.
Williams favours what has been termed the "Advantage Plus" system, in which 11th and 12th would play off, along with fifth versus sixth, seventh versus eighth, and ninth against 10th.
His reasoning for that system was that it gave the minor premier the easiest run — the top team would play the winner of 11th versus 12th in a semi-final.
Williams preferred that system to what was arguably fairest of his five models, the "Ranking Version" under which the top team would play the lowest ranked winner, the second team played the second lowest and so on.
"It's always played at the home ground of the highest team as well, so they have a big advantage, but there's still some chance of the others winning."
The other systems were called "Standard" "Advantage" and "Combination". All versions have two extra finals in week two of the finals series, compared to now.
Williams said it was "definitely" a better chance for the top two teams to reach the grand final. He said it was "very much" like a tennis draw, which was designed to assist the highest ranked seeds.
"You get a week off, you play the worst team and you also play at home," he said.
"They're all elimination. Sometimes in finals you actually play each other more than once during the finals series, that happens. Now, you can't do (it) in this new series, whoever you play, you play once, and if you beat them, you move on and they're out."
Guthrie, a former president of the Inventors' Association of South Australia, said the final 12 will give Victorian teams with more representation and the MCG with more finals. "It would give you a lot more games there."
Guthrie contended that a final 12 would work better than a final nine, 10 or 11 — a final 10 lending itself to two unwieldy groups of five.
A top-four team that won the premiership would still play three matches, a team from 5-12 would play four matches en route to a flag.
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