First off, I get it, AFLX wasn’t created, designed or implemented for passionate, long standing footy fans. As has been the league’s mission throughout the 21st century, the league has two key target groups for this new format, kids and the northern states.
Masters of resting on their laurels and taking their core fanbase for granted, AFLX ignores this group and is built for kids who can’t sit still for longer than five minutes and New South Welshman and Queenslanders who can’t even find an oval ground nearby, let alone would ever visit one for a football game.
Alas though, it was unveiled in Adelaide, at the top level and marked the beginning of the pre-season. So, what were some takeaways from the AFL’s latest wacky creation?
It’s just basketball
End-to-end, players largely congregating around each team’s goalsquares and providing an incentive for taking shots from long range. AFLX was footy merging with basketball, like never before. The real stuff has continually added elements from basketball, but AFLX was essentially basketball with a football and with goal posts instead of baskets.
Lack of any defensive strategy or intensity was zzzzzz
Reminiscent of non-contact drills, the lack of any semblance of a defensive plan from all 18 teams was pretty remarkable. Although slightly understandable considering clubs would have had one, maybe two run throughs at most and they weren’t taking it seriously, most players didn’t even bother to pay attention when their side were without the ball. Tackles were few and far between and while it almost entirely eliminated stoppages, seeing teams just waltz to 40 and bomb long became boring and stale, quickly.
The key gimmick isn’t exciting
Like the six in Big Bash and three’s in basketball, the awkwardly named “Zooper” goal (of course with an attached sponsorship) was a key way to liven things up. 10-points for a goal kicked outside the two 40 mete arcs is reminiscent of the glorious “Supergoal” which lit up the Wizard Cup all those years back. Smoke and fireworks following the booming goal from distance. The main problem? No one at AFL level is unable to kick a goal from 40 metres out, so they happen all the time. On Thursday, Fremantle and Geelong went back and forth kicking zooper goals and they quickly lost their lustre. It has to be a proper achievement to nail a zooper goal and at the rate they were occurring, it isn’t at all.
It served little purpose for the clubs
The teams were almost exclusively filled with first year players & rookies and few teams bothered to send the maximum number of players on their respective flights over. As the format is so unique, it was fairly fruitless gauging how the new draftees handled their first taste of something resembling AFL action. There weren’t any strategical breakthroughs coaches can bring to the real stuff and the games were so short, the level of running will most likely be matched in training across the next week. Nothing really to take away or build on for anyone involved at club level.
I’m not sure if the AFL achieved its objectives, crowds were solid, despite the lack of interest from clubs. AFLX could most definitely work at grassroots level, which would be the aim for the league. But to use the beginning of pre-season to present it to the masses? Let’s just start the JLT Community Series.