6 hours ago, spirit of norm smith said:

The AFL have today confirmed the fixture for Gather Round 2026, with Melbourne set to take on Essendon on Saturday 11 April at 1.15pm local time. 

The blockbuster match will be played at Adelaide Oval, and will be a rematch of the club’s 2025 clash. 

Blockbuster… LOL

I’d like to say the drip feeding of the fixture is keeping me in suspense.

But I really don’t GAF

Only Eagles and Dees not part of this:
https://www.afl.com.au/news/1452342/showdown-sydney-derby-headline-run-of-six-friday-night-double-headers

Wonder if we will get any Friday night games

Sounds like we’re going to make our Launceston debut against Hawthorn in about round 17, according to someone on bigfooty.

Apparently there is some absurd stat that since 1897 there’s only been 4 seasons that we haven’t played Collingwood as the home team. The most recent being 1999.

On that basis I expect us to play Collingwood twice (again) next year as we’re the away team on Kings B’day.

Edited yesterday at 10:571 day by Bring-Back-Powell

6 minutes ago, dice said:

Only Eagles and Dees not part of this:
https://www.afl.com.au/news/1452342/showdown-sydney-derby-headline-run-of-six-friday-night-double-headers

Wonder if we will get any Friday night games

We’ll get Anzac eve which lands on a Friday night but no others in the first confirmed 15 rounds you wouldn’t imagine.

5 minutes ago, dice said:

Only Eagles and Dees not part of this:
https://www.afl.com.au/news/1452342/showdown-sydney-derby-headline-run-of-six-friday-night-double-headers

Wonder if we will get any Friday night games

They refer to those six matches as being “double headers”, but they appear to be just two matches played on the same night, but held at different venues. That seems a new take on the term “double header”, which had traditionally referred to two matches played at the same venue, one after the other.

So when there are three matches on say a Saturday night, all played at different venues, are they now to be referred to as “triple headers”?

Hopefully we are clear of Thursday and Wednesday night games as well.

Saturday day, arvo and night please and thank you

35 minutes ago, Ghostwriter said:

Blockbuster… LOL

Another AFL decree ...

You, the people, must observe this match as a blockbuster. No more questions. Attend!

"But it's 13th vs 14th?"

Remember the 10. The Top 10

For those that are impatient

it will only take until July 2026 until we know the dates and times for the full fixture

12 minutes ago, DubDee said:

For those that are impatient

it will only take until July 2026 until we know the dates and times for the full fixture

And even then we won’t know the full fixture because round 24 is a big fat secret ‘til five [censored] minutes before it starts 🤨

Wow so we're off to tassie to play hawthorn.

Didn't see that coming. I'm guessing if the afl are sending us to tassie I'm not expecting a great fixture for us.

Round 17, that would be winter wouldn't it. Just wonderful. But it looks like I'm off to tassie. Woohoo

Did someone say we’re off to tassie to play hawthorn 😳

I wasn’t expecting that and now I’m not expecting a good fixture for us at all now

Cant believe some are hoping for a good draw?

It’ll be a shocker no doubt, but thats the price you pay when you stink it up for consecutive years.

Really couldn’t care less who & when we play this season. Suck it up & work towards becoming a serious football club again… oh wait weren’t we just? Ohhh…

Anyway, looking forward to seeing our boys just getting back to playing footy without the [censored] show circus off field. Last couple years has been disgusting.

Very excited by this club reset tbh.

If we do play Hawthorn in Launceston will round 17 at least be before they stop announcing the time & date of games so we caan actually book flights and accommodation in advance?

42 minutes ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

If we do play Hawthorn in Launceston will round 17 at least be before they stop announcing the time & date of games so we caan actually book flights and accommodation in advance?

In last year’s fixture release the round 17 dates and times were a TBC.

6 hours ago, Dees051321 said:

Did someone say we’re off to tassie to play hawthorn 😳

I wasn’t expecting that and now I’m not expecting a good fixture for us at all now

That’s a kick in the nuts from the AFL

21 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

I’m the opposite. I’d prefer a soft opponent at the MCG with a greater chance of getting this new regime a win ASAP.

Last thing the club needs is a punishing first month with membership at mini crisis levels (to end 2025) given we’ve fallen behind St Kilda and Bulldogs and now pretty close to North at the bottom of the VIC pack.

Not a fan of members who hold off purchasing a membership based on performance (assuming they can afford it). A new coach is exactly the time we need to be showing our support!

2026 will be my 22nd consecutive year as a Redleg and my wife’s 5th. We will remain on auto renewal until we pass into a parallel universe where we have Hawthorn/Geelong/Brisbane type success.

I have a little prediction since Anzac Eve and King Birthday are not our home games this year, the AFL has to give us a home game against a big Victorian club (hence why we’ve played the filth twice for eternity) If it’s not the filth this year I’d like it to be a home game against Geelong, and hopefully we don’t play them twice and we don’t have to travel down to that [censored].

On 11/11/2025 at 09:30, Red and Blue Flame said:

We should get a favourable draw given we finished in the bottom 6.

Yeah but on the flipside will include 3 games at Geelong to make up for Collingwood, Carlton and Tassy not playing there!

A bad draw commercially is to be expected.

Playing Hawthorn in Launceston is not, though.

Our number of MCG games next year might be a record low.

Meanwhile Sam Edmund reporting that Carlton have 7 Thursday or Friday night games in the first 16 weeks.

So for some, poor performance equals a poor fixture. But clearly not for others. Hell, this is more than Collingwood are getting!

https://www.sen.com.au/news/2025/11/12/afl-fixture-hawthorn-prime-time-games/

Edited 21 hours ago21 hr by titan_uranus

Does it really matter what our away games are? We know we're going to travel interstate 7 - 8 times, so I don't really care if it is to Launceston, Adelaide or Coober Pedy.

My hope is that we avoid Thursday nights, and I'm happy to play as the away team on Friday nights.

I mean

Freo away r2

Gc home r4

Ess gather round

Tigers away r6

Pies away r 13

Hawks away in tassie r17

The rest of the games surely home games lol

Probably away in Geelong, say, gws in Alice springs, 2 home games at marvel 😂

By the way, only releasing 16 rounds is nuts. Why wouldn't you at least do 18 rounds and cover the July school holidays???