Every single time there is a drawn AFL game, advocates of extra time pop up saying we need it to ditch the draw. And after three draws in the first four rounds this season, they can now be heard as loud as ever. But the debate is getting a bit tiresome, honestly, because there’s nothing at all wrong with the status quo.
A draw is a fair outcome for a game of football. A result in extra time is, in a lot of cases, not a fair outcome. It’s that simple.
This is about fairness versus questionable fairness, and I’m on the side of the former.
Take the drawn game between Carlton and Essendon on the weekend for example. The Bombers lost two players (Jason Winderlich and Courtney Dempsey) in the first quarter with ACL knee injuries. This meant they were missing two regular members of the team, they were a man down on the bench for most of the game, they did not have the advantage of unleashing a sub in the third quarter and they were not able to rotate as much as their opponents.
Asking Essendon to run out for another ten minutes of footy, after all the prior disadvantages and the obvious fact they were not the side with the fresher legs, would have been grossly unfair on them.
But this just exposes extra time for what it’s really about it, which is getting a result at the expense of all else. That might sound like a good thing to some, but it does not mean that result will be the right result – which is what the priority should be.
If four quarters and 120-odd minutes of football can’t separate two teams, then splitting the points is an acceptable outcome and, most importantly, provides an uncompromised result.
It should be remembered footy is a game of four quarters. Players go out expecting to play four quarters and, given how infrequent draws are (this year aside), even if extra time were to exist they would still go out expecting four quarters.
These players give all they have during this time frame, which is why it seems so unnatural when the result of a game is decided beyond the confines of four quarters.
There’s also the slippery slope that comes with extra time. What if five minutes each way doesn’t split the two teams? Do you go down the basketball path and have allow for double or even triple overtime?
The players are already worried enough about fatigue levels. How would they react to being asked to play on beyond an additional ten minutes? How would it affect their performance a week later?
The draw is not unique to Australian football, but it is an intrinsic part of the game that should be preserved all the same. And no, that’s not just because we’ve been having them since the VFL began in 1897.
It’s because the draw adds another dimension to both individual games and the home and away season as a whole, given draws can affect where sides sit on the ladder. The fans might feel let down when the siren goes, but those same fans would feel more let down if their side actually lost the game. Well, at least I know I would.
Sure, it might be tempting to “get a result on the day”. But at what cost? And is a draw really that much of a “non-result” in the first place?
Sorry, but give me fairness over questionable fairness any day of the week.