10 minutes ago, The end is nigh said:

But when will they include a champions league??

I’m down for a Scottish Cup type comp.

Every registered club in Australia in contention.

2 hours ago, VNightCityLegend said:

First it was Halloween, then it was the invasion of American fast food chains, then it was the change in scorecard graphics by Channel 7 and Fox to mimick the NFL and now this. Not to mention Gen Z cousins of mine are now using words like “candy” and “biscuits” instead of lolly and scones.

Really hate how Americanized and how obsessed this used to be great nation of ours is so obsessed with the Yanks.

AFL is a game of attrition similar to football/soccer where squad management is a major skill. You must predict in a sense and have foresight to fill any holes that may arise during the season. List management is one of the most underrated skill in the game.

Having a "top 10" diminishes this quite a bit.

Not a fan. Imagine being Gold Coast who finished 7th in 2025 (60pts) getting knocked out by 10th placed Sydney (48pts) a side who rallied late in the season and in some really good form.

Just doesn't seem right when you compare the body of work Gold Coast had done opposed to Sydney.

When was a biscuit ever called a scone?

I liked the novelty of it initially and the potential that we could sneak into a 9th or 10th spot next year but after thinking about it for a little it just seems a bizarre move.

Essentially this change punishes teams finishing 7 and 8 and rewards teams finishing 9 and 10 of which the former shouldn't be punished and the latter shouldn't be rewarded.

How about fix the umpiring rather than trying to invent some sort of fictitious wildcard drama.

Just watch. The 7th and 8th placed team will be unable to move up or down after Round 22, so they’ll just withdraw their 10 most important players for Round 23 in preparation for ‘Wildcard Weekend’ - wreaking utter havoc on betting markets and raising all sorts of questions about the game’s integrity.

I love how the AFL forgets its own recent history. Why did we have a bye again? Oh…

37 minutes ago, dees189227 said:

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

I feel like if this shake up has somehow taken thunder from the AFLW then they really need to be upping the standard to where it wouldn’t take the front stage.

I think AFL should be able to put out a statement whenever they want, just the same as AFLW should be able to whenever they want. Asking them not to publish anything on the AFL during AFLW is crazy to me.

They’re announcing vital information about the game whilst some version of AFL is still running.

They can’t go announcing it in December when it’s the Ashes.

They also can’t announce when it’s nearly football season because fans would be livid.

Literally the least broken aspect of the game.

FIXED!

Pathetic & Rewarding mediocrity but also teams 7 & 8 punished as they will need to play an extra finals game hence winning a flag even harder vs the current finals system, not to mention the opposition clubs playing the wildcard winners will be able to watch an strategise

4 hours 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!

We weren’t going to be good enough to make the 8 next year. We’re less chance of making top 6.

No way a club wins a flag that finishes outside top 6 now.

Finishing 7th to 10th just pushes out Mad Monday for a week or two. Dilutes the finals series for me by weakening the chances of the 7th and 8th team.

I think everyone should focus on the positive in this situation which is...

Gold coast finishing 7th and being knocked out in the wildcard round and gifting us pick 9 instead of 12+

Death ride 2.0... Fall of the Suns^TM (working title)

Edited 15 hours ago15 hr by Random Task

I thought this would help Merrett but you would need a top 16 for Essendon to make the finals.

Personally I'd rather teams be playing off for a draft position at the end of the year after the designated rounds than rewarding them with continuing on and trying to win the Ultimate prize.

I think the top 18 teams should all play 22 or 23 ‘finals’ before the top 8 play each other in a ‘super finals’ series to determine the premier. So crazy it just might work…

Would love to finish 10th and knock out Collingwood who finish 7th, just to make them spew.

Hmm, now it'll be 11th that could be the hard luck story. Now there'll be a two-tier finals series. Now too many teams play a final. (Actually it may turn out we end up with a defacto final six.) Honestly I'm not too fussed - there'll be a few more interesting late-season games. But really this is AFL looking to do something and well, they'll make plenty of moula with two bonus finals.

14 hours ago, YearOfTheDees said:

The AFL has confirmed a major shake-up to the finals format, with a wildcard weekend confirmed for the 2026 season. Going to be in tomorrow Herald Sun.

Great why dont we have a final 18 and just continue the season over and over ! Money grab desperados

Let's just have a final eighteen

Like I said it's not that bad. But imagine a state of origin-type game instead in that pre-final bye spot with the best players from the also-rans. It's recognition and valuable experience in an almost finals environment. It may have worked. You'd get two very talented teams and a great spectacle as a lead into rhe finals proper.

11 hours ago, Oxdee said:

When was a biscuit ever called a scone?

Have had a real US biscuit. They are a lot different from scone. I actually prefer them to our scones!

2 hours ago, Go Ds said:

Hmm, now it'll be 11th that could be the hard luck story. Now there'll be a two-tier finals series. Now too many teams play a final. (Actually it may turn out we end up with a defacto final six.) Honestly I'm not too fussed - there'll be a few more interesting late-season games. But really this is AFL looking to do something and well, they'll make plenty of moula with two bonus finals.

10 hours ago, Demonsone said:

Pathetic & Rewarding mediocrity but also teams 7 & 8 punished as they will need to play an extra finals game hence winning a flag even harder vs the current finals system, not to mention the opposition clubs playing the wildcard winners will be able to watch an strategise

Spot on Demonsone!

The only adjustment I’d make to this is that I wouldn’t consider the wild card games part of the finals series.

I’d call them “finals qualifiers” to get into the final 8. I think that would be easier to stomach for those who are dead against this.

If the wild card came in at the end of 2024, I think we as MFC supporters would have been a bit more enthusiastic about this as most us were expecting an 8th-11th kind of 2025 season. Next year I’d say the majority of us have us around 13th-15th at best and thus the wild card is a bridge too far for us.

1 minute ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

The only adjustment I’d make to this is that I wouldn’t consider the wild card games part of the finals series.

I’d call them “finals qualifiers” to get into the final 8. I think that would be easier to stomach for those who are dead against this.

If the wild card came in at the end of 2024, I think we as MFC supporters would have been a bit more enthusiastic about this as most us were expecting an 8th-11th kind of 2025 season. Next year I’d say the majority of us have us around 13th-15th at best and thus the wild card is a bridge too far for us.

At best?!!! Speak for yourself!

In 2021 West Coast and St Kilda finished 9th and 10th with 10 win / 12 loss records and percentages in the low 90s.

It was devastating for all concerned that such deserving sides missed the finals, and it is fantastic that the AFL have acted to ensure that such heartbreaking events never happen again.

Seriously, this is yet another blatant cash grab that devalues the achievement of making finals and rewards mediocrity.

I've been to every final we've played in Melbourne for the past thirty plus years, but I won't be giving the AFL a cent to watch a wildcard game.

the other thing that seems to be being ignored here is that this gives the afl two 'sudden death' games that suddenly, presumably, have no aligned broadcaster

neither 7 nor dazn pay for these games, as yet, as part of their broadcast rights package, so presumably they're open to any broadcaster who wants to bid for them

the afl (and the nrl) have been desperate to get streamers engaged - i personally have my doubt that an international org such as amazon, netflix, etc. would have ANY interest in a small domestic sporting competition like the afl / nrl, but this could be an easy 'in' for one of them to have a taste and see what value they can ascribe to the competition

Halfway into the last season, the top 8 was effectively settled and there was absolutely nothing to play for.

For this reason alone, I am interested to see how this goes.

Bit of a joke isn’t it. Commercial entertainment at its best (or worst).

The upside. Another week to watch footy. Just like opening round. Sure, I’ll look forward to another week of footy.

The downside. It is more and more just a contrived competition. This on top of the ‘fixture’.

Still love the game but I’m losing the passion.