Two close games

Always upsets early days

I remember most people tipping 0/4 from last years opening round

Ill go Hawks and Pies

Draft Pick 4 playoff after Round 23?

Juicy!

Best thing about friday night footy tomorrow….

No BT, No Darce

Huddo and Whateley

I get that some don’t like Gerald but he is a great call. No BS dukes wheels and sizzlers - just calling the game

Did the Swans review the GF?

I really hope that they ditch this round zero rubbish next year what a load of carp it is.

9 minutes ago, DeeZee said:

I really hope that they ditch this round zero rubbish next year what a load of carp it is.

Out of interest would you be happy with a split round.

I suppose the Round zero rubbish allows them to split the following rounds via the early series of byes to even up the rest periods.

Perhaps a round in Perth and Adelaide for round zero might enable them to even things up a bit better.

Funnily enough I think a Round Zero match in Tasmania might have worked well this year

10 hours ago, Diamond_Jim said:

Out of interest would you be happy with a split round.

I suppose the Round zero rubbish allows them to split the following rounds via the early series of byes to even up the rest periods.

Perhaps a round in Perth and Adelaide for round zero might enable them to even things up a bit better.

Funnily enough I think a Round Zero match in Tasmania might have worked well this year

Yes a split round is ok as it’s all a level playing field after round one with everyone having played a game.

14 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

I think this is the soft launching pad towards a wild card weekend from next year, to get people used to football again in the weekend prior to finals.

I know the thought of a wild card upsets and angers people greatly, but I think this is where we are heading. 7 v 10 and 8 v 9. Essentially the top 8 will become the top 6 in terms of having a genuine crack at the flag, which is fine.

Methinks we are saying the same thing: I call it a 'playoff' you call it a 'wild card'.

It was very obvious as soon as talk of a reschedule started what the AFL for was angling for.  They would be rubbing their hands with glee!

That final game is likely to be a 'playoff' for a finals spot as one or both GCS and Ess will be around the top 8 this year.  Even if only one is around the top 8, it could still shape the 8 if that team wins or looses the 'playoff' game.  Especially, if it is % that decides those spots. 

For example if GCS is 7th, 8th or even 6th, with only one win or % keeping them in the 8, if they lose the game or lose % they could drop out of the 8 and 9th come in.  

Or if Ess/GCS are 9th and a game or % keeping them out of the 8 they could get in at the expense of the 8th team.  

The AFL would be beside themselves with the prospect of such or similar scenarios

Edited March 6, 20251 yr by Lucifers Hero

Not even God wants an opening round.

The ONLY reason to have a R1 split is to organize byes for ANZAC day games if they are during the week, so none of us, tigers pies or dons, have to play off a 4-day break or something. Those are the 4 teams that should be going north in the first half of R1.
 

16 hours ago, Whispering_Jack said:

Rescheduled Opening Round matches

The AFL has announced that Brisbane and Geelong will play in Round 3 on Saturday, March 29 at 6:35pm (local time) at the Gabba. 

The Gold Coast Suns and Essendon will play an additional game as part of a “floating” Round 24 fixture.

This isn’t going to be a particularly satisfactory way for the Suns and Bombers to approach the finals if they’re still in the running. And if they’re not in the race, then playing two meaningless games in the last round of the season would be a complete drag.

A better option would have been to move Geelong vs Essendon from Round 14 to Round 16. That would have opened up the space for Gold Coast Suns vs Essendon in Round 14, a far more logical and less disruptive outcome but logic and the AFL don’t necessarily always go hand in hand.

Swans and Collingwood for me this weekend.

An even better option would to be to flip the byes around for the OR teams.

GWS had a bye in R2 along with Gold Coast.
Hawthorn had a bye in R4 along with Essendon.

Why not just have GWS/Hawthorn have their bye together in R2 or R4 and Gold Coast/Essendon play in the other week?

35 minutes ago, Lucifers Hero said:

Methinks we are saying the same thing: I call it a 'playoff' you call it a 'wild card'.

It was very obvious as soon as talk of a reschedule started what the AFL for was angling for.  They would be rubbing their hands with glee!

That final game is likely to be a 'playoff' for a finals spot as one or both GCS and Ess will be around the top 8 this year.  Even if only one is around the top 8, it could still shape the 8 if that team wins or looses the 'playoff' game.  Especially, if it is % that decides those spots. 

For example if GCS is 7th, 8th or even 6th, with only one win or % keeping them in the 8, if they lose the game or lose % they could drop out of the 8 and 9th come in.  

Or if Ess/GCS are 9th and a game or % keeping them out of the 8 they could get in at the expense of the 8th team.  

The AFL would be beside themselves with the prospect of such or similar scenarios

Agree with all of this.

Amazing that the AFL took advantage of a cyclone to program everyone into a wild card weekend going forward. I'm sure there were tons of viable options to play the GC/Dons game prior to round 24.

12 hours ago, DubDee said:

Best thing about friday night footy tomorrow….

No BT, No Darce

Huddo and Whateley

I get that some don’t like Gerald but he is a great call. No BS dukes wheels and sizzlers - just calling the game

Aside from Whateley's Poindexter like voice, he's a decent commentator and Huddo's one of the best in the business.

Apparently BT's not doing Friday night footy anymore. Al Nicholson has taken over. Reckon his constant errors and calling players by the wrong name has caught up with him. Be interesting if he's still calling the GF this year.

24 minutes ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Aside from Whateley's Poindexter like voice, he's a decent commentator and Huddo's one of the best in the business.

Apparently BT's not doing Friday night footy anymore. Al Nicholson has taken over. Reckon his constant errors and calling players by the wrong name has caught up with him. Be interesting if he's still calling the GF this year.

Matt Hill is quickly becoming my favourite caller. Beautiful golden radio voice, incredibly professional and knows how call the match to enhance the action rather than making it all about himself.

13 minutes ago, KozzyCan said:

Matt Hill is quickly becoming my favourite caller. Beautiful golden radio voice, incredibly professional and knows how call the match to enhance the action rather than making it all about himself.

Agree. Amazing what happens when you put people who can actually call a sporting event properly on the telecast. How they went from Dennis and Bruce to Brian Taylor is a joke…

i thought there was to be no saturday fta broadcast, yet tomorrow's game is fta

2 minutes ago, daisycutter said:

i thought there was to be no saturday fta broadcast, yet tomorrow's game is fta

I'd say this is because of the games lost this weekend.

They probably renegotiated it with the broadcasters.

Can’t wait for the pre zero round.

2 minutes ago, Redleg said:

Can’t wait for the pre zero round.

‘Ground Zero’

Updated fixture for this week. 

swannies and pies are my tips. bleurrgg

3 hours ago, KozzyCan said:

Matt Hill is quickly becoming my favourite caller. Beautiful golden radio voice, incredibly professional and knows how call the match to enhance the action rather than making it all about himself.

Especially when Langdon is 5 lengths in front on the outer wing, taking another bounce

What happened to the thread about media hypocrisy and all that? Because ol' mate Barrett has excelled himself by proceeding directly from giving Hawthorn a [censored] for how much they 'don't care what anyone thinks' and how every club should follow their example - "The attitude is stunningly compelling and powerfully effective."

to Melbourne;

"seems a tad fake and even forced. Seems to be a lot of recreation of history, too. Oh well, it’s been a well-coordinated media strategy"

 

Am I the only one who looks at Hawthorn's obsessive social media attention seeking and sees... obsessive social media attention seeking?

Anyway, I was always going to watch tonight for the sake of getting a little warm-up dose of football, but I really think for the first time in my life I'm actually going to be wishing injuries upon a team. It's not like hating Collingwood or even Essendon, where the fault lies with the some mix of the club leaders, the coteries, the fan culture, and some particularly annoying individuals. At Hawthorn the players really have bought in to the whole 'precocious little [censored]' fantasy with a terrible case of main character syndrome.

Hmm, let's not say injuries, even now I can't do it. Let's just hope that seven of their players get pinged for recreational pee-in-a-cup results on the same weekend and all have to sit out the next two years while they wait for AFL lawyers to bother submitting paperwork.

I think that's a bit cruel, to some,  three pinged would be ideal,  from each club playing this weekend

Gulden, Mills and McDonald are 3 big outs

It's even money now