I know there is a bubble about Freo having too many squad players in Peel's teams for finals. It set me thinking about whether there is a formula that is fair to players in FFC, plus the teams elsewhere in the WAFL.
(I'm sure someone will be able correct me for any errors in all this.)
Given: Squad members need to have played minimum five games for Peel firsts or seconds during the season. There is no limit on how many AFL games they have played during the season..
These are the eligible players, with Peel games, AFL games, total.
Logue : 9 + 13 = 22
Taberner: 13 + 8 = 21
Strnadica: 20 + 0 = 20
Collins: 17 + 2 = 19
Griffin: 12 + 7 = 19
Darcy: 11 + 8 = 19
Ibbotson: 9 + 10 = 19
Cox: 9 + 10 = 19
Suban: 7 + 12 = 19
Sutcliffe: 6 + 13 = 19
Dawson: 15 + 2 = 17
Ryan: 6 + 11 = 17
Sheridan: 7 + 9 = 16
Pearce D: 8 + 7 = 15
Duman: 14 + 0 = 14
Nyhuis: 10 + 4 = 14
Deluca: 8 + 4 = 12
Bennell: 5 + 2 = 7
It's hard to argue that the players with 10 or more appearances for Peel should be denied the opportunity to play finals. In particular, those players have been arguably an important part of Peel's make-up for the season. Those 8 players are highlighted bold in the list.
I think it is reasonable for an upper limit on AFL games to be applied and I arbitrarily chose 8 as a cut off. That would cut out 9 players (Taberner 8, Darcy 8, Ibbotson 10, Cox 10, Logue 13, Suban 12, Sheridan 9, Ryan 11 and Sutcliffe 13). In the case of Logue, Suban, Ryan and Sutcliffe, they have played half or more of the H/A rounds in the bigs.
With the minimum five games qualification, and these two rules applied, the only 8 eligible players would be:
Collins, Dawson, Duman, Strnadica, Griffin, Nyhuis, Pearce D, Deluca and Bennell (the latter withdrawn from finals by Freo) — Peel might not be so dominant under this scenario, but would still have some useful contributors.
Another model is to say that any player with more games for Freo than for Peel is ineligible. That would rule out Ibbotson, Cox, Logue, Suban, Sheridan, Ryan and Sutcliffe, leaving 11 eligible players.
The WAFL is going to be under pressure to make further changes to the eligibility and we might as well offer them useful suggestions.
Contributions and reactions welcome.