Western Bulldog Deanna Barry boots a goal in last week’s thriller against undefeated Fremantle. Photo: GETTY IMAGES
1. What a shemozzle the reworking of the AFLW season has been.
First, players were told they were jumping straight into a four-team finals series, and distraught Collingwood players were headed to the pub.
Then the news came through that we would have an eight-team finals series. Suddenly, the Pies were back on track and through to the knockout phase. Other clubs no doubt rode the same emotional rollercoaster.
This was bungled communication at its worst from AFL headquarters.
In the end, the final two rounds of the home-and-away season have been cut loose – but why? If the men’s competition is going full steam ahead, why isn’t the women’s?
Perhaps the AFL is bracing for a halt to the season in the near future and wants to get the W competition run and won as soon as possible.
They’ve covered their butts by expanding the finals series from six teams, but also hedged their bets by shortening the season overall.
What we should see – if it all goes ahead – is a cracking finals series. As any regular viewer will tell you, the best offerings from the AFLW have improved out of sight this year.
That much was witnessed by anyone who saw Fremantle climb over the top of the Western Bulldogs in a thriller last week.
The Dockers – still yet to win a women’s or men’s premiership after entering the AFL a quarter of a century ago – are unbeaten going into the new finals series. They will start favourites against Gold Coast on Saturday, but now it’s a different ball game.
North Melbourne and Collingwood shapes as a belter, as does Carlton and Brisbane, while perennial pre-season fancies Melbourne travels north for its first taste of finals action against Greater Western Sydney.
Bring it on.
2. A week has always been a long time in football. Now it seems like an eternity.
The same could be said for all walks of life amid the coronavirus pandemic.
While we brace ourselves for a shifting landscape every hour – let alone week – this will be the most compromised AFL season on record in almost every conceivable way. Except, of course, for one important aspect.
Assuming the full 153-game plan works out, this could actually pan out to be the fairest fixture the national competition has ever seen.
Never before in the AFL era has every team played each of its rivals once – no more, no less – during a home-and-away season. In fact, you have to go right back to 1986 to find an AFL/VFL season that had a fairer fixture.
That VFL campaign was the last that saw all 12 sides play each other twice, home and away, before the introduction of West Coast and Brisbane saw the competition expand to 14 teams.
No silver lining seems worth celebrating too hard at this time, but maybe a sniff of a fair schedule will provide football with a better fixture model going forward.
One clear problem arises with that thought: The AFL hierarchy almost certainly doesn’t want a fair and even fixture.
Under the current model, top teams from one season play each other more often than others in the next campaign. The same goes for the teams in the bottom and middle brackets.
It’s a system designed to maintain a 198-game season – around which the broadcast deals are structured – while creating tighter congestion on the ladder than the spread we would otherwise have.
It falls into line with the AFL’s quest to follow the “Any Given Sunday” mantra (that anyone can beat anyone else on their day).
So, what the fixture looks like beyond 2020 is anyone’s guess. Perhaps we will even get an extended season to make up for a shortened one.
3. Richmond excitement machine Marlion Pickett famously made his AFL debut in front of 100,014 fans last September.
Tyler Brown (Collingwood), Ben Cavarra (Bulldogs) and Sam Sturt (Fremantle) will do so this week in front of empty stands.
So, too, will prized draft picks Matt Rowell and Noah Anderson at Gold Coast, and St Kilda key forward Max King. A couple of Demons, too, in Kysaiah Pickett and Toby Bedford.
Brown will likely make his debut alongside older brother Callum. How the new boys fare in their first steps into the big league is always an intriguing watch.
But we’ll need to wait a little longer to see Izak Rankine in action for the Suns after he nicked a hamstring again.
Tom Green will debut for Greater Western Sydney in the same week the top-10 draft pick signed a two-year contract extension.
4. The late game on Sunday always feels a very long way off when you’re gearing up for Thursday and Friday night football.
Even more so at a time when the AFL could realistically be shut down at any minute, rather than rolling comfortably through its standard weekly timetable.
But scrap all that and cast your mind forward to a possible blockbuster at Optus Stadium. It pits a genuine premiership contender against a talent-laden side looking to claw back some respectability and climb back up the ladder after a 2019 horror show.
The fact there won’t be 60,000 West Coast fans there to offer their usual “welcome” to Melbourne adds an intriguing element to the contest. Gone is the so-called “noise of affirmation”.
Tim Kelly will make his highly anticipated debut for the home side alongside fellow midfield stars Luke Shuey, Andrew Gaff and Elliot Yeo. Nic Naitanui is back off a full pre-season for the first time in several years to take on All-Australian big man Max Gawn.
Gawn and Shuey will lead their respective teams as club captains for the first time.
The Dees head west with almost a full squad from which to choose and will be full of energy after a seemingly positive pre-season. They have been beaten on their last two trips to Optus Stadium, but won a famous encounter there in August 2018, and the venue should hold no fears this week.
Round one might be a case of saving the best until last.
5. There’s a crazy slice of history we should consider heading into round one of the 2020 season.
It was pointed out by renowned stats guru Swamp (@sirswampthing) on Twitter.
History says that the teams sitting on top of the AFL ladder after round one in leap years this century have all gone on to win that year’s premiership.
The list reads Essendon (2000), Port Adelaide (2004), Hawthorn (2008), Sydney (2012) and the Western Bulldogs (2016).
The lowest percentage of each of those teams after their season-opening wins was Essendon, which generated a “measly” 251.6% after smacking Port Adelaide by 94 points in the first ever match at Docklands Stadium.
Some pundits are already predicting a West Coast whitewash of Melbourne to finish round one in 2020 and reigning premier Richmond is at almost unbackable odds against Carlton. Both the Eagles and Tigers already sit comfortably amongst the leading flag contenders.
Port Adelaide is warm favourite to beat last year’s wooden spooner Gold Coast, and who knows what round one will throw up?
Whether or not the round one ladder leader goes on to win the premiership, it will be an intriguing little watch to see if that quirky statistic rings true again this year.
