I miss Mr Football... I'd love to hear the ridiculous spin he would put on this AFLX rubbish.

Tonight the AFL is playing in a rectangle and the A-League is playing in an oval. Unique.

I don't watch AFL, but have seen a bits of games over the last few years.  I took the time to watch 15-20 minutes of this AFLX. For me, this new version of the sport is much more watchable and a much better spectator sport than the 'normal' AFL. Having said that, it's still not my cup of tea.

http://thewomensgame.com/news/juric-home-grand-final-an-x-factor-despite-afl-485322

On the same theme.

22k tonight has to be considered s huge success, ended up opening level 3

22k, free tickets handed out to anyone who’d take them and multiple teams playing?

Not really a huge success at all.

I agree. 

Adelaide had 10k with 2 home teams and Melboune 22k with 6 home teams. 

I think a lot of people are missing the point of AFLX, even including people inside AFL circles, like journos.

AFL has a participation problem. To play the game as an adult, you need at least 22 people willing to commit to a full season, which includes your body taking a battering.

With AFLX, you can get a few mates and play a bruise-free version of the sport on a weeknight, like futsal or touch footy, and this whole experiment is just a big ad for exactly that. They have AFL 9's, but it has never been endorsed or promoted by the AFL, so this idea is a more a refinement and promotion of that idea.

It's not a competitor to the A-League or the BBL, it is a competitor to your local futsal or touch footy competitions.

Bingo. It's for your mates on the weeknight or weekend. Most don't have the best ability to kick that well. While the pros its one kick than its a shot on goal.

Although the thing I never get with AFL players, they are superb athletes but in terms of kicking, passing and technical skills sub par for top best in the world players of the sport.

I've joked for years that the AFL's next moves would be to reduce the size of the pitch, then make it a rectangle, reduce team sizes, make the ball round, then lose the extra-point posts, then throw a cross-bar on the goal, then learn that handball is an offence...  

Slowly slowly...  

@ Trickytrees (Nottm Forest there right?)

That’s a nice theory and might be correct; if it is then it’s just another example of where this has not been thought through - a soccer pitch is huge so to get 7 of your mates and try and cover that pitch for 20 minutes is just, well a big ask to put it politely. Futsall works because it’s a vastly reduced number of players on an appropriately sized pitch.

AFLX is like trying to play Futsall on a soccer pitch. You can do it but at the professional level the fitness of athletes means there’s too much space so it’s a no contest at the ameteur level the lack of fitness means the space will kill the contest.

There’s talk they’re changing the rules for next weekend - possibly introducing two extra players per team - it’s actually turning in to a fascinating exercise in how to invent a sport.

a soccer pitch is not huge, even for amateur AFL players it's not huge, most of us can kick a footy 40m

The Hubris of the AFL knows no limits...and shame on Hindmarsh stadium for letting them play there in the middle of the A-League season

@ bettaga

Amateur players can kick 40m and professional players further right? So two kicks for a professional team/player and it’s a zooper which kinda misses the contest part of AFL.

At an amateur level maybe three kicks but the point is there’s a lot of space in a soccer pitch which averages about 650 square meters which means each players got over 90 meters to cover and when they bunch up there’s huge gaps elsewhere - the fittest amateur players will thrive but the majority will die with all that space. Soccer overcomes that with 4 extra players and having parts of the pitch temporarily “out of bounds” via the offside rule.

I think there’s a good chance rules will get changed for next weekend and it wouldn’t surprise me if you’re watching 9 a side not 7.

If this is true then its a very short sighted move. This will drain talent from the AFL proper and present new problems. 

Heaps of stuff going on in the city last night, melb united had a sell out against the perth wildcats, storm had a good crowd against leeds in the world club challenge. What else was on in adelaide? Lol

Well, the FFA's head honcho is being paid bucketloads for blaming us prole supporters, for reasons I don't really understand; - I suppose he wants to show that he's doing something +ve when really he isn't!

Well, we weren't in bumper to bumper traffic I 'spose.
The Adelaide fringe festival opened with a nice balmy night and plenty of gourmet & wine stalls in Elder park, while Beale gardens were "The Garden of unearthly delights", and because the public transport was sufficient for a place 1/3 as populated as Melbourne, Most punters used it.

You also need to factor in the 5k or so that were on their way to Etihad before being bashed by African gangs. 

It is a competitor to soccer it is trying to win the hearts and Minds of children and increase participation and interest in the game of AFL by modifying the game including lesser roughness and shorter time frame

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-16/aflx-not-an-exciting-new-format-of-a-beloved-sport-richard-hinds/9452570?section=sport

That said, it would be churlish not to list the highlights of AFLX's debut in Adelaide on Thursday night. So, in order, here they are:

1. The final siren.

Otherwise from just the second game of AFLX, it became apparent this ill-conceived and hopefully short-lived experiment has only one thing in common with the real game — Collingwood can't make the finals.

There are a few references to real football in this article.
But I post it since not only do I agree with it, but even more so for the fact that The Worst newspaper over here publishes not 1 negative bit of reaction whatsoever from anyone about this concept.

Gillon McLachlan opens up on ideas thrown up after AFLX night one, as well as some of his own

IF YOU thought the rules and concepts of AFLX couldn’t get anymore left-field, think again.

Following the first night of footy’s fast, fresh format, league boss Gillon McLachlan had a causal meeting with confidants and colleagues in an Adelaide hotel lobby.

McLachlan had just watched the Crows take out the inaugural AFLX trophy at Hindmarsh Stadium, where ‘Zooper’ goals, neon lights, live play-by-play commentary and much more was unveiled in front of just over 10,000 fans.

McLachlan opened up about some of the ideas shared in that meeting, as well as some of his own suggestions, during the Friday night AFLX tournament at Etihad Stadium.

“I had a chat with the guys afterwards back at the hotel and everyone’s got lots of ideas,” McLachlan told Fox Footy.

“People think the 40m arc could be like a three-point line, so you can get 10-pointers from the wing.

“I was talking to Steve Hocking and I reckon it’d be good if a forward and a back had to stay in the 40m arc, so there’s a 1-on-1 contest … you work out how to give the 10 points so there’s incentive to stay in there.”

“There’s a lot of different ideas that are coming in. It’s a hugely experimental weekend.”

McLachlan also hinted that teams that play in AFLX — a concept widely seen as the AFL’s answer to cricket’s Big Bash League — could be franchises, like the BBL.

The AFL chief executive said someone like great St Kilda benefactor Gerry Ryan, for instance, could buy St Kilda’s AFLX franchise.

“He could do that, he could draft you in for a one-week tournament in November,” McLachlan said.

That might open up opportunities for ex-players to stay involved in the game from an on-field perspective.

But for McLachlan, a big post-tournament debrief and brainstorm session would be needed first before any big decisions around the aforementioned are named.

“If it has a place, then it’ll be like: ‘How do the licenses work? Where do you play? Is it only international or where does is it in the season?’ It’s all fun to chat about,” McLachlan said.

http://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/gillon-mclachlan-opens-up-on-ideas-thrown-up-after-aflx-night-one-as-well-as-some-of-his-own/news-story/86671e7850a1c678b40309f2e3dcfce2

If that crowd is 4 figures then the AFL are worse at number fudging than we gave them credit for

The near side looks full...any idea how much that fits? 

1-2k at Sydney?

Perhaps even less