I’m with Jimmy.

While Victorian teams definitely have a home state advantage on grand final day, history shows they don’t always win.

This year West Coast played Collingwood on Collingwood’s home ground and won. In fact, since the game’s expansion beyond Victoria, there have been 17 deciders where a Victorian team has played a non-Victorian team. The interstate sides have won nine.

Plus, while non-Victorian teams may be disadvantaged on the day, they have their fair share of benefits during the year to help them get there.

During the season and for every final played on their home ground, the non-Victorian teams hold a significant advantage of their own. While Adelaide, for example, host travelling teams every second week of the season in front of a vocal, partisan, sometimes hostile crowd, Victorian teams don’t have this luxury. Collingwood, for example, might play Melbourne at the MCG, who also happen to call the ’G home.

This sort of advantage for interstate sides holds true throughout the finals series, right up until the final match. And, because they have to play the grand final away from home, they now want to tinker with one of the great aspects of the game.

One of the AFL’s great quirks is that after a whole season of blood, sweat and tears, the premiership is decided on just one day. It’s the biggest day of the season and some of its magic would be lost if it was watered down.

Plus, playing three games to decide the premiers opens up a new raft of problems.

The MCG is contracted to host the grand final until 2057, meaning things will become very messy indeed. For example, if Adelaide were to host Sydney and the Crows won the first game, surely the MCG must host the next? For if the Crows were to triumph in the second, there would be no need for a third.

So where would that leave the Swans? The problem concerning the “fairness” of it all is still not solved.

Then there’s the players. Australian rules football is one the longest, toughest, most brutal games in the world. Over 120 minutes some athletes cover as much as 17 kilometres.

In 2010, after a gruelling, captivating contest that ended in a draw, Collingwood and St Kilda had to return to the MCG the following week to play again. The grand final replay was a sad imitation of the week before. Put simply, St Kilda were shot.

But the fallout was significant. So keen was the football world for a result when the game ended in a tie that the league later changed the rules to ensure there would be no coming back in future. Instead, extra time would be played to decide the victor.

Two grand finals was taxing enough. Can you imagine the toll on the players from three?

There’s also the fans who are already financially stretched to afford a grand final ticket, not to mention how much they fork out on travel costs.

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Just this year there were Melbourne fans paying up to $2000 in flights to travel to Perth for their preliminary final match against West Coast.

Some decided the money was better spent travelling days across the Nullarbor in their car. Many of them wouldn’t have had much spare if their team advanced to the last Saturday in September, let alone multiple grand finals.

You might argue that three grand finals might mean three times as many fans can buy a ticket. But in reality it’s more likely three times as many corporates will attend.

The fact the AFL competition is not a level playing field no great revelation – the fixture alone is filled with inconsistencies and hard-luck stories.

But it works, and you know what, at the end of each year, the best team usually wins the flag. Even with just one grand final.

Sam Duncan is a Fairfax Media columnist and a lecturer in sports media and marketing.