Talk:2012 AFL season

A friendly reminder

...to use the commercial names when listing the venues for the 2012 season. For example, Bellerive Oval → Blundstone Arena, Sydney Showgrounds → Skoda Stadium, Kardinia Park → Simonds Stadium. Unless anything has changed since this discussion... IgnorantArmies 03:00, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

...and also, to keep Game Notes both notable and referenced. I intend to stick fairly closely to the guidelines that we tacitly agreed upon last year in this discussion. Aspirex (talk) 06:44, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm. I'm still uncomfortable about using the commercial names. The clubs only do it because those sponsors have paid them money. They haven't paid Wikipedia any money. (And we wouldn't take it anyway.) HiLo48 (talk) 18:05, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Murdoch sources

This topic is obviously broader than this article, but I'm not sure where to take it.

Rupert Murdoch is promising a paywall for his newspaper websites. User Trex21 added a "Note" to Round 4 telling us that today's game was the 2,500th VFL/AFL match at the MCG. It's a good "fact", but I wondered how far back this went, and did it include the VFA days? I went to the source, Murdoch's Herald Sun, and bumped into a demand that I log in before I could see past the first two sentences. I won't log in, so I cannot check the source.

The Herald Sun has historically been one of our most frequent sources for AFL articles. What is our position on this? HiLo48 (talk) 09:30, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Newspaper citations don't strictly need a URL. If I bought the hard copy, I'd only cite by page number. It's the same as citing books.

If I look into my crystal ball, I'd suggest that all online newspapers will probably be behind paywalls within five years - and, the presence or absence of a paywall will probably become the yardstick by which a reference is judged as reputable or non-reputable. Aspirex (talk) 09:54, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, true, one can buy the paper, or go to a library I guess. But I'd still like to sort out the VFA thing. Senior games were played at the MCG in the VFA up until 1896. That's when the VFL was created. So the games total probably includes VFA games, as well as VFL/AFL. I cannot check the source (at least at the moment). Can you? HiLo48 (talk) 11:06, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out that the note was added by User Merlin Wiese, not by me Trex21 (talk) 11:47, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

In all references I have ever seen, 'VFL/AFL' has the unambiguous meaning of senior premiership games in the league which commenced in 1897 as the VFL, and has been known as the AFL since 1990. Senior VFA games, minor grade VFL/AFL games, night series games, senior interstate games, senior intrastate games, senior state of origin games and international rules matches are all not counted under this definition. Double-checking this using the venue records at stats.rleague.com confirms that there were 2499 such games up to the end of last round. Aspirex (talk) 11:58, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Well done. Special award deserved there for effort. Interesting though. I went to the MCG museum not long ago, and they take great pride in having hosted top level football since the 1860s. I wonder why the line is drawn at 1896? HiLo48 (talk) 12:31, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

It's just a matter of how the statistic is defined. I'm sure the MCG maintains its own number of games inclusive of all forms of senior football, and when it reaches a milestone, that will be its own story. Aspirex (talk) 12:51, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Few Points: The 2,500th match accounts for all home and away matches plus finals from 1897 to the present (VFL/AFL). I would just refer to it as the 2,500th VFL/AFL match, as that is regarded by the AFL to include premiership and finals matches, the same for individual club matches. I probably should have used the stats.rleague as the source as this was where I confirmed this note - if it would be better to reference this source then I'm happy to change it. I would have used an article from the MCG/MCC websites though I didn't find one, and if there is another online article or news source that has the full article and doesn't require you to log on then you could reference that instead. Merlin_Wiese (talk) 13:31, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

The AFL does it's utmost to ensure that the VFL history 1897 to 1989 and AFL history from 1990 to today is the only football history covered by default - ie the frequent use of the term "making their senior debut" when they mean AFL debut or ignoring the feats of Bonny Campbell, George Doig, Bernie Naylor, Austin Robertson, Jr. or Ken Farmer etc when they talk goal kicking records. They have to be dragged kicking and screaming to acknowledge other comps or players from the pre-national game era, so any current celebration/record unless clearly stated otherwise will be for VFL (1897-1989)/AFL (1990-2012) only. The problem with the stats.rleague table is that it isn't static. I've asked the guy who runs the site to add a "game number" column to the big tables such as http://stats.rleague.com/afl/venues/mcg_gm.html so that it will always be obvious which game was #2500. The-Pope (talk) 13:41, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Ladder progression

would anyone be able to do the things that need to be done to add User:Trex21/sandbox? haven't had any luck myself and I'm not really au fait with templates... I plan to have a crack at the other tables at some stage Trex21 (talk) 12:35, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Ablett's 53 possessions

Number of possessions is a very recent statistic added to the game by the media. It's not in the same class as number of goals or behinds, or even number of marks. It's arbitrary, and hardly guaranteed to be accurate. I really don't believe we should be listing it as a significant item, and certainly not as any sort of record. I heard a radio comment this morning listing several old time players who had a lot more touches. HiLo48 (talk) 08:25, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Of course it should be mentioned, it's a much bigger statistical achievement than Buddy's 13. Possession count has been recorded for about 30 years, so I wouldn't exactly call it recent, and the record that was equalled was from 1989. No doubt there were probably some very high disposal performances pre-1980 that may have eclipsed Ablett and Diesel, but the equal most possessions in a game for the last 30 years is still a noteworthy achievement. Perhaps a note should be added that disposal count has only been recorded in the 'modern era', but it should definitely not be removed. Jenks24 (talk) 08:39, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

If we were debating whether or not it belongs on the overall AFL page or list of records page, I'd also want it heavily qualified. But to me the three notable things about Rd 10, 2012 were the number of upsets, given that top 9 played the bottom 9, Buddy and Ablett's 53 in a losing side. Maybe that needs to be highlighted more than the record? Something like Gary Ablett (Gold Coast) had a record-equalling 53 disposals in a game, but his team still lost by almost 100 points. That matches the angle on it that most of our references are taking. The-Pope (talk) 10:23, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Thirty years may seem a long time to some, but it's about half the time I've been watching footy, and a much smaller fraction of the time footy has been played. The "achievement" needs to be put in that context. Rather than "record", we should say something like "highest number of possessions since records began in 19xx". And I still have my concerns about precision. Nobody will debate Buddy's 13 goals, but we cannot be so certain about possessions. HiLo48 (talk) 10:26, 4 June 2012 (UTC)