What’s Wrong with a Draw?

Last weekend a pretty unique double occurred where both the AFL and the NRL simultaneously had games where the scores were level at full-time. At Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, St Kilda kicked a goal with 12 seconds remaining to level the scores with Hawthorn at 87-a-piece. While at WIN Jubilee Oval in Sydney, the Gold Coast Titans and St. George-Illawarra Dragons finished regular time at 10-all.

This unique circumstance had me thinking how different sports deal with a match that has no winner at the end of regulation time as well as the pros and cons of the different methods.

Let’s look at the AFL first. Simply, when the scores are level at full-time during the regular home-and-away season, the match is a draw and the teams equally share the points (2 points each).

A consequence of a game ending in a draw is the often hollow-feeling experienced by the players and the fans of both teams. It’s a big let down to ride the emotions of a tight contest to get to the end and realise that, though your team hasn’t lost the match, they haven’t actually won it either. It is this hollow-feeling and the desire to find a winner that is pushing the AFL to change it’s rules regarding drawn matches - the same reason why the NRL changed it’s rules 7 years ago.

In 2003, the NRL decided that games during the regular home-and-away season that were level at full-time should then go to what is known as golden-point extra-time. Basically, which ever team scores first during this extra-time period wins the game. The method of scoring this golden point is unrestricted - it can come from a try, penalty goal or from a field-goal. If after 10 mins (2 x 5 minute halves) of extra-time and the teams have failed to score, then the game is declared a draw. First-to-score overtime is also used in the NFL during it’s regular season games.

NRL’s golden point was developed out of football’s (soccer) “golden goal” that was first introduced during the late 90’s and was used during the 1998 and 2002 World Cups. Football’s thinking was that extra-time period’s had turned into dour, defensive affairs as both teams played a conservative approach and waited for the other team to make a mistake or fall back on the lottery of the penalty shoot-out.



Football had the right idea. As it is far more difficult to score in football than it is in most other sports (especially rugby league), it would seam fair that the first team to achieve this difficult feat would win the game. It was thought that this would promote attacking football and it would reward the teams that were more creative or took more risk. However, it went the other way and with the pressures of money, fame and trophies on the line, teams became even more conservative - teams were playing not to lose, rather than to win.

Football then decided to scrap the golden goal period and revert back to it’s old 2 x 15 min extra time period. It was thought that it was too unfair on the other team that was scored against and that they should be given a chance to get back in the game (UEFA experimented with silver goal, but that was also short lived).

The fact that football, a game where scoring is so difficult, decided that it was too unfair for it to be “first score wins”, highlights the biggest flaw regarding NRL’s (and also NFL’s) golden-point extra time. Simply, it is far too easy to score for it to be that the first team to score wins the match.

In the NRL, the most popular method of scoring during golden-point is the field goal. Scoring a field goal is quite easy as you do not need to break the defensive line and you need only to be within the opposition’s half of the field. Furthermore, it is not the main method of scoring during regular time (as opposed to football where there is only one method) as it only produces one point compared to 6 points for a converted try. In fact, probably over 90% of matches in the NRL would not involve a single field goal attempt - but during golden-point it suddenly becomes the best method of winning a game.

Therefore, the golden-point extra time effectively turns into a toss of the coin. As most (good teams) can drive their way to their opponents half inside a set of 6 tackles, and thus position themselves for a field goal attempt, whoever gets the ball in any sort of field position (apart from running it out of their own try line) basically wins the game. It’s too unfair for the match to be decided by a scoring method that is too easy and too infrequently used. This was best highlighted by the aforementioned St-George Illawarra - Gold Coast game - 10 minutes of field-goal attempts until the Gold Coast got one right with 40 seconds remaining.

The golden-point period turns into NRL’s version of a penalty shoot-out - players taking the easy, conservative approach of attempting a field goal instead of going for a try which was their main aim for the 80 mins (and the 100+ years) beforehand.

A far better approach would be to make it “golden-try” - still rewarding a team for scoring first but maintaining the main objective of rugby league - to score a try. The teams may still also kick a field goal or penalty goal to increase their score up until the end of extra-time but only a try would end the game straight away. I think fans would still be excited about a close contest where one score could end the game without turning the game into a field-goal-a-thon. The referees would also be under less pressure to call penalties, which, currently they are not doing as it almost guarantees a loss for the team that is penalised.

In the United States, drawn games are so much a faux-pas that all of ice hockey, basketball and baseball all have over-time during regular season games until there is a winner - regardless of how long it takes (or in the case of the NHL, a penalty shoot-out is needed). The NRL’s system also fails in this regard in that after 10 minutes of golden point that if no one scores then the game is a draw - a result that the golden point period was supposed to prevent.

But what is so wrong with a draw? If the scores of the two teams were pretty similar throughout the game and both teams were evenly matched in how they played, which is often the case in a draw, it’d be hard to disagree that both teams deserved to get something out of the game, i.e. competition points. While in the alternative scenario, if a team has come from a very large deficit to snatch a draw right on the final whistle then their players and fans would be emphatic and certainly would celebrate the draw as if it were a win. In this scenario, the circumstances of their comeback transcends any hollow-feeling even though they only drew the game.

What do you think about extra-time in your favourite sports. Should it be first-to-score wins? Should it depend on the scoring method? Should extra-time determine matches during the regular season as well as knock-out matches? Or should there be any extra-time at all?

The Legend of the Bad Sports Team Nickname

During the week, the AFL revealed the nickname, jersey design and team song of the brand new Gold Coast-based team that will enter the league next year. According to
Gold Coast Football Club (GCFC) chairman John Witheriff, the club bowed to pressure from their members and elect to have a nickname. After many hours throwing around possible monikers, the staff at GCFC came up with a nickname that “reflects our values and is symbolic of our home” and “was just so damn obvious” - the Gold Coast Suns.

While it is true that many people come to visit or even move to the Gold Coast for the warm temperatures, the beaches and the surf I couldn’t help to think about the Suns that I’ve known since my existence - the NBA’s Phoenix Suns. Couldn’t the GCFC have came up with an equally representative name of the Gold Coast that was also original, or at least, a name that was not already attached to a well-known sporting team? Like the Gold Coast Tourists or the Gold Coast Skin Cancers? Appealing to the younger market they could’ve gone with the Gold Coast Schoolies...

For me, the name also just doesn’t fell right when I say it - sorta gets stuck in your throat. In the past the Gold Coast have had the Titans, Chargers, Seagulls and Rollers which roll much better off the tongue. While some might say these names were not particularly original or even representative of the Gold Coast - the names seamed more appropriate when yelling them out at Carrara Stadium. Try shouting out C’MON SUNS!!! See, it just doesn’t feel right does it?

Gold Coast’s new nickname has got me thinking about some of the more recent bad nicknames in sport. For instance, the A-League has some of the worst nicknames going around. Perth Glory, North Queensland Fury, Central Coast Mariners and yes, my team of which I am a proud member, Brisbane Roar. The only decent and original nickname is the Wellington Phoenix. A team that was reborn from the collapse of the old New Zealand Knights franchise - similar to the mythology of a Phoenix. Oh, I almost forgot, the A-League’s newest team has a shocker of a name - the Melbourne Heart. What will happen if the A-League takes a team to Tasmania? The Tassie Testicles? I bet you that team would have very good ball skills...

A quick look overseas shows that bad sports teams nicknames are rampant. In the National Hockey League there are the Columbus Blue Jackets, Minnesota Wild, Toronto Maple Leafs, and St. Louis Blues (named after the style of music, not the colour). In the Indian Premier League they have the Royal Challengers Bangalore (named after their sponsor, Royal Challenge), Mumbai Indians and the Delhi Daredevils to just name a few (for the sake of not listing every team). In Major League Baseball, Houston’s franchise are currently named the Astros - after changing it in 1962 from the Houston Colt .45s! Imagine using that in a team chant!

Modern day sport is all about big business and making money. Team names of a bygone era were based upon things such as the location or icon where the club was based, the team colours of the club or a peculiar / eventful incident during the clubs formative years (e.g. English Premier League’s Newcastle United magpies). Now days, the marketing train has gone in to overdrive and team nicknames are subjected to focus groups and surveys to determine which name will attract the most consumers. Obviously, the name should fit in well with the colour scheme that the marketers also decree that will sell the most jerseys (that’s a blog for another day).

So in essence, a good team nickname should be representative of the team, representative of the area, original, marketable and, not sound so as if it we’re at a hippie World Cup (Heart v Glory anyone?) But I think the biggest and most important test of all of a great sports team nickname is the ability to to shout it out at the top of your lungs from the very back seat of the stadium when your team is down and you’ve got a mouthful of a Four’N Twenty after 10 or so XXXX Golds. The Greater Western Sydney AFL franchise - you have you work cut-out for you...