18 hours ago, The heart beats true said:

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…

I'm sure they just get on the gas at a long lunch with the broadcast partners and make this [censored] up without any critical thought.

Same applies to the rules of the game.

They've just killed any chance for 7th and 8th pretty much.

The game will get harder to officiate and watch next year.

The murderers work continues

1 hour ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

The optics on this would have looked slightly better if they had announced that they were REDUCING the finals to 6 automatic qualifying spots and that teams finishing 7-10 would play off to make up 2 additional spots. Additionally, these two games would NOT be considered as finals.

Exactly my 2 cents worth as well.

Although I seem to be in the minority and am actually excited to have a couple of high stakes games on the last weekend of August, as opposed to nothing. I guess I like watching football…

7 minutes ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Exactly my 2 cents worth as well.

Although I seem to be in the minority and am actually excited to have a couple of high stakes games on the last weekend of August, as opposed to nothing. I guess I like watching football…

I think most people will enjoy watching those games in August (when it comes to it I know I’ll appreciate no bye round as it does feel weird) but I think there’s a real prospect that in a few years from now, the discussion will be how 5 v 8 and 6 v 7 games are compromised because of this new round of finals.

I think the only upside to this is having footy on a bye round whereas the downside means 5&6 teams end up running over 7&8 year after year. It’s just increasing the likelihood that these finals games will be duds, which isn’t good for the game.

The AFL is so pathetically reactive. Maybe there is something that they've done in the last 20 years which is truly innovative, but if so, I can't think of anything.

If the AFL really believes the end-of-season bye is bad for football because there's a "dead" weekend, there are other ways of fixing that including:

• move the bye to the week after the Preliminary Final

• instead of playing 9 games each week (apart from the weeks of the bye rounds) as currently structured, play a mix of 8 and 9 games each week for the whole season including the last weekend which is currently without any AFL (men's) games. Sure, it means the ladder is uneven throughout the season...but does that really matter? (And that's what we had this year, anyway.)

• start the season one week later.

None of the above are perfect solutions, but all are better, in my view than a "wildcard round" which is effectively meaningless anyway as none of the teams playing in that round will have a realistic chance of contending for the flag anyway. Who's going to be interested in watching what will turn out to be two additional meaningless games?

1 hour ago, Demonland said:

48 minutes ago, YearOfTheDees said:

World cup had been 48 for a while just dropped back to 32 for Dubli

World cup had been 48 for a while just dropped back to 32 for Dubai.

That's actually not the case YOTD. 2026 will be the first one with 48 teams. Also, the last one was in Qatar, not Dubai but hey ho, it's all just one big hot desert built over by slave labour from the sub-continent.

1998 they decided to increase the WC to 32 which was OK but 24 is the best number imo to have a lot of high quality games

48 is a joke and there will be teams getting smashed. I'll tune out until the quarters

Correct me if I am wrong, I think I heard that the AFL -players agreement [CBA] I think it is called.

Dosnt it state that all players from all teams have a bye before the finals? If it does how does this align with the AFLs blockbuster 7-10 playoffs.

8 minutes ago, DubDee said:

1998 they decided to increase the WC to 32 which was OK but 24 is the best number imo to have a lot of high quality games

48 is a joke and there will be teams getting smashed. I'll tune out until the quarters

I'd be happy if it was 16 teams again. Four groups of four teams. No seedings in the qualifiers either. 1974 & 1978 were great without England.

34 minutes ago, DubDee said:

1998 they decided to increase the WC to 32 which was OK but 24 is the best number imo to have a lot of high quality games

48 is a joke and there will be teams getting smashed. I'll tune out until the quarters

I follow some travel sites etc for World Cups. Many of the big team supporters are saying they will give most of the round robin games a miss due to time and cost.

If the Dees finish tenth and play finals "even one" I be happy and most likely go along and watch, but still not agree with the wildcard round.

Edited 2 minutes ago2 min by YearOfTheDees

6 minutes ago, YearOfTheDees said:

A

I've actually been there. It's a tiny village on the Lofoten Islands in the far north of Norway but is spelt Å.