7 minutes ago, dees189227 said:

No one asked for this & I'm sick of trying to americanise this sport.

More details about this nonsense have been leaked from AFL House.

The finals will henceforth be known as the World Series.

21 minutes ago, Macca said:

Yes and the bottom line is that robust competition can be good for business

I'm a keen punter and I admire what V'Landys has done for NSW racing and the NRL. He's a true visionary

The AFL are in a dogfight for eyes on their sport but both codes have hundreds of 1000's of rusted on types

It's those who can swing either way is where the battle lies

It's like Coke vs Pepsi or Trump vs whoever. Either side wants to win

Ch7 won't want to be beaten in the FTA stakes to Ch9 & League

So there can't be a footy free weekend

Why they ever brought in a free weekend in the first place was a baffling decision

I agree he is a visionary. He’ll probably steel the Dees NGA picks next that we get robbed of.

18 minutes ago, Dee man said:

I've done the calculations so that you guys don't have to.

IF the Demons won the five games we lost this year by 10 points or less, we would have finished the H&A season with 12 wins and...

...we still would have missed out on the Wildcard Round.

We're definitely in the conversation, though, for 2026. Maybe Steven King's finals aspirations are now within reach!

Yep, everything changes now in terms of our expectations ... if the thinking was that we are able to eke out 10 or 12 wins, then we're much more a chance of playing finals

And forget the jargon of the wildcard weekend and what we might call the 2 extra games, the thinking will quickly gravitate to 2 extra finals being played

So last year, Sydney finished 10th on 48 points whilst both Hawks (8th) and GCS (7th) finished on 60 points.

If Sydney got into the finals by beating either GCS or Hawks in this round, that doesn’t sit right at all.

At our current state it is a benefit to us so that’s all I care. It’s not just a battle for 7th to 10th but also clubs below that who have incentive to fight out the season and have a sniff for a wildcard game.

I'd love to see us make the wildcard game with a 1987 run home!

Finals bound, baby!!

We'll all be watching (or going) if we finish 9th or 10th

And if that happens and we win, bring on 5th or 6th!!

Twilight or night GF will be next ... nearly all big time sport finals are played in the evenings. Might be every sport

I'll give it 2 or 3 years in it's present time slot

Anyway, it's now the Final 10

Here's an idea, let's have a final 18...

My cousin summed it up beautifully:

Modern Melbourne energy would be to be 6th after 22 games, then lose at home (in the final round of the regular season), have results go against us and finish 11th on percentage. Proper MFCSS.

My addition:

But we traded away our first round pick

9 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

Here's an idea, let's have a final 18...

My thoughts exactly- we could call it “a season”

30 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

Here's an idea, let's have a final 18...

Will be introduced when we have a 20 team competition.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by Rab D Nesbitt

The pre finals bye was brought in to stop teams resting players in the final round

so let’s have 4 teams playing that will 100% rest players if secured of a position

Hate the pre finals bye but the AFL’s logic is laughable

So more teams make finals than miss out?

The AFL continue to turn the sport into a laughing stock

A decision made purely to manipulate interest in games and make money

Unless you finish top 6 you have zero chance of winning the flag now. No way GC win in Freo if they played another final

1 hour ago, Demonstone said:

It's farcical that a side finishing in the bottom half of the ladder gets to play finals. Did somebody say "tinpot"?

14th doesn’t get finals

1 minute ago, DubDee said:

The pre finals bye was brought in to stop teams resting players in the final round

so let’s have 4 teams playing that will 100% rest players if secured of a position

Hate the pre finals bye but the AFL’s logic is laughable

We need to get our heads around the notion that teams will rest players when applicable

For instance, the Penrith Panthers rested 16 players in their round 26* match prior to the finals (they knew that they were going to finish 5th - 8th, no matter what)

Some would argue that teams like Penrith have earned the right to rest players

Most would know by now that in the big sports worldwide, resting players is quite commonplace, especially in soccer and the NFL. The NBA are trying to implement a strong policy but phantom injuries are always on the agenda

Oddly enough, one of the reasons State of Origin in footy became obsolete was because so many players had suddenly become unavailable

Yet in RL, State of Origin, players are clamouring to get selected to play in these rep games

*Round 26 was the penultimate match in the NRL (not the last round)... they subsequently lost that round 26 match to the Canterbury Bulldogs 4 - 26

100% about the cash 💰

1 minute ago, Macca said:

We need to get our heads around the notion that teams will rest players when applicable

For instance, the Penrith Panthers rested 16 players in their round 26* match prior to the finals (they knew that they were going to finish 5th - 8th, no matter what)

Some would argue that teams like Penrith have earned the right to rest players

Most would know by now that in the big sports worldwide, resting players is quite commonplace, especially in soccer and the NFL. The NBA are trying to implement a strong policy but phantom injuries are always on the agenda

Oddly enough, one of the reasons State of Origin in footy became obsolete was because so many players had suddenly become unavailable

Yet in RL, State of Origin, players are clamouring to get selected to play in these rep games

*Round 26 was the penultimate match in the NRL (not the last round)... they subsequently lost that round 26 match to the Canterbury Bulldogs 4 - 26

Yeah I’m fine with the notion. Especially in such a combative sport

The AFL see it differently i guess?

So if you finish 7th or 8th then you're forced to play the 9th & 10th team. Even though 2 teams were good enough to make it.

I would be annoyed if we lost to an outside team.

Just now, DubDee said:

Yeah I’m fine with the notion. Especially in such a combative sport

The AFL see it differently i guess?

Well, from all reports the bye weekend came into being on the back of Ross Lyon at Freo resting a stack of players in a match prior to the finals (he also did the same in his early stint at the Saints ... against the Hawks in Tassie?)

Fairly sure Brad Scott did the same at North on at least one occasion (resting players)

Of course, now that we have dispensed with the bye weekend, will we see a return to teams resting players in the final round of the season? (more so pertaining to those teams situated in the 7th-10th spots on the ladder)

It's a gruelling sport and often rest is the best remedy against players getting fatigued after a long season (as we found out in 2022?)

We're heading towards teams having 2 byes during the season (in my view)

Edited 13 minutes ago13 min by Macca

19 minutes ago, DubDee said:

Unless you finish top 6 you have zero chance of winning the flag now. No way GC win in Freo if they played another final

Yeah it’s effectively making it a top 6.

7-10 don’t get a week off and play an extra to the death final.

If 9th/10th play an interstate 7th/8th then they travel back and forth. If they win, they might have to travel again to play another interstate 5th/6th.

Finishing 5th/6th looks a lot better now they’ll play a softened 7-10.

Can the afl just let the aflw just have its time? Like they're in there finals but you have to throw this in & you're releasing the fixture.

I'm thinking Dillon & swann are going to be making stupid decisions together

But when will they include a champions league??

Next step is an NT team and two 10 team conferences

It’ll be bad