As the AFL brainstorms the matter of what sort of finals series to employ once the competition expands to 18 teams, perhaps a good hard look at the current ladder is in order. You don't have to be Einstein to see that an eight-team finals series won't necessarily maximise excitement levels on the way to September. On the matter of how many teams make it, size is not necessarily important.

Traditionalists, of whom I am one, get terribly nervous at times like this. We begin having visions of AFL managers fiendishly smiling and rubbing their hands together at the prospect of a great big new finals series earning great big new sums of money. Ten, twelve, or even more teams might get to enjoy the September action from 2012. And we're meant to be excited about this because the suits from Docklands tell us our teams will then have a much better chance of making the annual cut.

Whoopy-bloody-do I say. Really, who wants their team making up the numbers in some phoney configuration that is about mediocrity not excellence? Who wants the balance between home-and-away and finals so grossly distorted that five months are spent weeding out perhaps fewer than 50 per cent of the teams, and then four or five weeks determine the fate of the rest? Who wants to see also-rans compete with the silk at the time of year when we should be seeing only the best? Who wants to see the likes of Essendon last year, going to Adelaide and being thumped in a massive anti-climax that only demeans the ideal of finals excellence?

I certainly don't. I think we already have too many teams playing in the finals and I think the ladder at the moment validates this view. The significant point about the ladder as it has been trending is that it effectively consists of two divisions: a top eight and a bottom eight. The problem is that over the last seven weeks of the home-and-away season, there's not likely to be a great deal of promotion or relegation. The eight is looking dangerously close to settled and a couple of the teams in it aren't too flash.

Now imagine we didn't have this every-child-wins-a-prize style of finals structure, and to qualify for September a team had to actually achieve something higher than 50 per cent to pass. Let's say teams were required to finish in the top 37.5 per cent to make the finals, in other words they would be required to finish in the top six.

Last weekend, Sydney would have edged back in, by the barest shred of percentage ahead of Carlton, with Hawthorn in eighth spot on the same number of premiership points. We would be in general agreement that, on current form, neither the Swans nor the Blues really deserved to play in September. The unconverted would be inclined to hope Hawthorn made it as they might worry the best teams. This dynamic would provide a much more interesting run to September and a significantly reduced risk of anticlimactic games once that time on the calendar arrived.

The point of this is to illustrate that more teams being admitted to the finals doesn't necessarily make for a more interesting jostle for spots. There seems to be an idea afoot, born of some distorted primary school mathematics, that having more teams in the finals will make things more interesting. The chances are it will do the opposite.

The other argument in favour of a larger finals field is that it keeps more teams in the contention through the second half of the season. In other words, if we don't prop them all up with false hope of a September miracle, their fans will drop off in droves. To the purveyors of this furphy I say: have a talk to a few Richmond supporters. The Tigers are highly unlikely to make this year's finals but do you reckon their fans have turned it up? And while you're out sampling public opinion, look out for some Demons fans, or pop over to Adelaide and enquire how Adelaide supporters have responded to the last few weeks.

I suspect many supporters of these teams are actually enjoying their clubs' efforts more than would be the case if their team was wobbling towards an inconsequential and inevitable finals drubbing. The fact is it's not some September mirage that keeps the second half of the season interesting for the fans. What keeps things interesting is real hope. For those fortunate to be following teams among the top brass that hope is for the short term. For those whose teams aren't there yet, it's for the longer haul. It doesn't have to be contrived.