AFL, NRL will always differ
NOT too many people will stick their hand up and admit they like the NRL as much as the AFL.
Yours truly is a member of that exclusive club.
Despair at seeing Richmond blow a 30- point lead against Carlton during the AFL finals was followed by euphoria when the Sydney Roosters got Manly in the NRL grand final.
Happy to participate in NRL and AFL tipping competitions as well.
Managed to pick up a tidy sum after taking out an AFL tipping competition this year after picking 153 winners.
Don’t mean to show off, but tipping AFL winners isn’t all that hard at the moment.
The Suns and Giants are still finding their feet, while the likes of the Lions, Eagles, Demons and Saints aren’t exactly setting the world on fire.
Don’t know about you but trying to get a handle on the Kangaroos and Bombers over the years hasn’t been an easy assignment.
Meanwhile, tipping winners in the NRL is like trying to predict the Lotto numbers.
At the moment the Eels are a train wreck, while the Dragons, Tigers, Warriors, Raiders and Broncos are a long way from winning the premiership.
Trying to get a gauge on the consistently inconsistent Panthers and Raiders when it comes to tipping borders on the impossible.
For the record, one did like the fortunes of Hawthorn in the race for the AFL premiership before Round 1 in 2013.
To once again give you an indication how unpredictable the NRL has become, your author tipped the Cowboys to win this year’s grand final and didn’t expect the Roosters to make the Top 8.
When it comes to the art of tipping everyone has their own formula, especially if you’re successful. Home ground advantage, injuries, history, inside knowledge, weather, betting prices and whether the game is during the day or at night.
If you’re serious about winning footy tipping competitions, one thing is paramount. The head must overrule the heart when it comes to splitting teams.
Tales of punters tipping the Giants over the Magpies or the Eels over the Sea Eagles because they didn’t like Collingwood and Manly respectively leave you scratching your head for two reasons.
First, the Giants and Eels were never going to win.
Second, those particular punters will never win a footy tipping competition.
And they wasted their money entering the tipping competition in the first place.
When it comes to tipping, the bloke who puts his name to this column sticks to a rule. Must know who is playing. In that regard, the AFL never leaves the tipster in the dark. Every Thursday the 18 starters, four players on the bench and the three emergencies are named.
There could be changes come game day, but the bottom line is that the final 22 players will come from that
The AFL never
leaves the tipster in
the dark
squad of 25. If a player is drafted into the final 22 from outside that squad of 25 players after Thursday, then the club is fined.
Whole different ball game when it comes to the NRL.
Clubs will name teams on Tuesday, but by the time the weekend rolls around the starting 17 has a habit of changing dramatically — which isn’t fair to tipsters.
When there is money or betting involved, the tipster has the right to know who is playing. How many times have you settled on a team in a 50/ 50 match before discovering that players from the team you picked pulled out at the last minute?
Or that players from the team you tipped against draft in a host of good players at the 11th hour? It’s a farce.
And, inevitably, the team you tipped against wins.
When that happens you just want to rip a cactus out of the ground with your bare hands.
No wonder it’s so hard to pick winners in the NRL these days. So what’s the solution? Try this for size. NRL clubs name a squad comprising 25 players on Tuesday, but come the weekend only 17 of those players named in the squad can take the field.
In other words, clubs are prevented from drafting players from outside the squad into their final 17 on the eve of a game.
That system would work, as tipsters would have a rough idea as to who is playing.
The AFL treat tipsters with courtesy and respect, while the NRL treat tipsters like mugs and fools. MEANWHILE, it’s about time the AFL followed the NRL by scheduling premiership matches at country venues.
With that in mind, every NRL and AFL club should host one premiership game at a country location annually.
All 34 clubs could stick with the same venue or nominate a different venue every year, it wouldn’t matter.
NRL and AFL pre-season trials do take place in the bush all over the country but the best players rarely play and teams are not at full throttle.
The good folk in the bush or isolated areas such as Darwin, Alice Springs and Cairns deserve to see one decent game of NRL or AFL in their neck of the woods every year.
Nothing worse than seeing half-empty stadiums in Sydney and Melbourne on TV when grounds in the bush would be packed to the rafters if granted the opportunity to host either an NRL or AFL premiership match.