Strong Feedback: Should AFL grand final be a best-of-three contest to spread the love?

A footy fan has come up with a compromise that could fulfil the MCG contract and see a decider played outside of Melbourne every year in this week’s Strong Feedback. Send your sporting opinions to strongfeedback@wanews.com.au with your name and contact details for a chance to feature in next week’s column. HIT THE ROAD What a fabulous few weeks of footy we’ve just had in Perth. Culminating in a fantastic grand final. Congratulations to all those involved. The AFL is contractually committed to staging the grand final at the MCG until 2059. Given WA’s strong support and enthusiasm, wouldn’t it be great to have a grand final here every few years? Well, we could! I’m proposing a best-of-three grand final series. The first GF would always be played outside Victoria, on a State by State rotational basis. The second GF would always be played at the MCG and, if required, so would the third GF. To ensure the season was not too long, I’m also proposing that every team play every other team once only. With one additional game for the derby, Showdown, Q-Clash etc. This would mean 18 home and away games. Dom Chiappalone BLOCKS AND BOUNDS It’s been interesting to read some of the feedback concerning Caleb Serong’s Goal of the Year. History will show that the lead up to that goal could have been an umpiring error? The “block” on Brayden Maynard in the 2018 Grand Final to give West Coast‘s Dom Sheed the winning goal seems to be forgotten. History will show that, that umpiring error cost Collingwood a grand final. A big difference! Graeme Brown THE BIG DOGS John Townsend’s article on the career of Bernie Naylor (22/09) gave thought to the full forward legacy that South Fremantle enjoyed between 1941 when Naylor began his career until 1969 when John Gerovich finished his. In those 28 years the two full forwards kicked 1805 goals for South and between them they represented WA 36 times for 100 goals. Ironically, many of South’s WAFL Hall of Fame players were in that era. Ross Hutchinson (player and coach), Frank “Scranno” Jenkins, Clive Lewington, Frank Treasure, Steve Marsh, John Todd, Naylor and Gerovich. The statue of “Gero” taking his famous mark over Ray French outside the gates of Fremantle Oval is iconic. Have to say, Ray was unlucky. It could’ve been any full back. Ask Ken McAullay! John Bandy RAISE YOUR EYES An often used expression by football commentators is that “players should lower their eyes” when kicking into the forward line. I would suggest that these commentators should “raise their eyes” from their computer screens and comment and analyse what they see on the field and spend less time basing their critique on the statistics which are often not indicative of what’s actually happening in the game. Grayden Clack SCRAP VFL RECORDS Time to drag the AFL into reality. The VFL is NOT and NEVER WAS the AFL. The AFL is the national competition. The official records must indicate the change from the old VFL to the new AFL and remove references to premierships and Brownlow Medals (and all other VFL awards) prior to the formation of the NATIONAL competition. In fact, change the Brownlow Medal to the AFL B&F. Same for the Coleman Medal and other old VFL awards. They do not need to be named after anyone associated with the old VFL. That was then, and it does not now reflect our current set-up. AFL records begin in 1990 and VFL records must be removed and placed in an archive with a live link to the AFL for context only. This is important, especially for players’ careers that straddled the two competitions, so that they are correctly recorded, in context. The AFL is now 31 years strong and should stand alone. Yes, there were some great players in the old VFL but they did not play in the AFL. Let it go. It is just plain wrong to continue to refer to champion VFL players, administrators and coaches from pre-1990 as AFL. They clearly did not compete in a true national AFL competition and we cannot carry on this falsehood. Robert Pratt