Fixture 2025 draw any news or leaks? (Fixture released today)

[JPetro83]

I love Thursday Night games, happy they've expanded the slate. Since not everyone does the obvious answer is to give every team one each as a home game to spread it around, I guess they're kind of on the right track there but if course they're still leaning into their favourites.

I love Thursday night games when the Crows aren't playing. One of the worst feelings is waking up the next day for work when the Crows lost the night before. Having to go to work with barely any time to let the result digest . If its a neutral game, its great, relaxing on the couch watching the footy is great.

 

[blueiris]

Why are the AFL pushing Essendon didn't the AFL not watch the Bombers Play last year

 

[Footy Smarts]

I'm hearing Collingwood to play in Geelong in Round 9. Locking out maybe 70k fans to sit in a rural dump at pork barrell stadium. Bring it on.

I'm hearing Collingwood fans will set a record for tantrums in the lead up to round 9 cause they have to play an away game against Geelong for the first time in a quarter of a century. The horror!

 

[Underarm]

Fixture exclusive: AFL gives itself over to Thursday night football

Thursday night footy is here to stay.

sen.com.au

It can also be revealed that Essendon will feature in the most Thursday night games in the first 16 weeks, playing four games on that week night.
Carlton, Hawthorn, Geelong, Western Bulldogs and Brisbane Lions will each play three Thursday night games in the first 16 weeks.
In all, 15 of the 18 clubs will play Thursday night football at least once in the first 16 weeks of the season.
----------------------

GC, North Melbourne, I wonder who the 3rd club is not playing on Thursday.

 

[PhatBoy]

I'm hearing Collingwood to play in Geelong in Round 9. Locking out maybe 70k fans to sit in a rural dump at pork barrell stadium. Bring it on.

Every game you don’t play at the mcg is potentially locking out fans. Stiff shit.

 

[parano1a]

The AFL strategy of drip feeding fixture leaks to the media each day until the full fixture release is working wonderfully.

 

[Seattle Mariners]

Can’t see the Pies game in Geelong actually going ahead.

No way would the club agree to it and their fans wouldn’t put up with it.

 

[Seattle Mariners]

GC, North Melbourne, I wonder who the 3rd club is not playing on Thursday.

And likely Melbourne.

 

[parano1a]

Every game you don’t play at the mcg is potentially locking out fans.

Collingwood are contracted to play 5 away games at the MCG and 1 away game at Marvel. That leaves 5 away games for other venues (excluding neutral Gather Round). If one of these games is at Geelong this leaves only 4 interstate games which everyone would whinge about. So I doubt the AFL will schedule Collingwood to play in Geelong.

 

[PhatBoy]

Collingwood are contracted to play 5 away games at the MCG and 1 away game at Marvel. That leaves 5 away games for other venues (excluding neutral Gather Round). If one of these games is at Geelong this leaves only 4 interstate games which everyone would whinge about. So I doubt the AFL will schedule Collingwood to play in Geelong.

Who cares. The fact that if they do, the point of contention will be ‘people might be unable to watch it’ is pathetic.

Just argue for 23 games at the mcg on that basis.

 

[Fadge]

I'm hearing Collingwood fans will set a record for tantrums in the lead up to round 9 cause they have to play an away game against Geelong for the first time in a quarter of a century. The horror!

Any time, anywhere, old boy!

 

[PiCkLeJuiCe]

I would have thought Rd 0 - Syd v Bris would have been a perfect choice to start the season. Missed opportunity and laziness of behalf of the AFL to just do what they did last year without thinking it’s through.

 

[eth-dog]

I would have thought Rd 0 - Syd v Bris would have been a perfect choice to start the season. Missed opportunity and laziness of behalf of the AFL to just do what they did last year without thinking it’s through.

You do realise the point was to have two games in each state, right?

 

[AFDogs]

I wish they ditched the Opening Round and went with something like this as a standard Round 1:

Thursday: Cats vs Bris

Friday: Hawks vs Pies

Saturday:
GCS vs GWS
Fremantle vs Port
Carlton vs North
Bulldogs vs Essendon

Sunday:
Swans vs Demons
Saints vs Richmond
West Coast vs Crows

 

[STPer18]

I'm hearing Collingwood to play in Geelong in Round 9. Locking out maybe 70k fans to sit in a rural dump at pork barrell stadium. Bring it on.

Yeah, for Geelong fans. We'll give the Collingwood fans a little pocket like we always do for the away teams, but 99% of you are getting locked out.

 

[manicmagpie]

Collingwood are contracted to play 5 away games at the MCG and 1 away game at Marvel. That leaves 5 away games for other venues (excluding neutral Gather Round). If one of these games is at Geelong this leaves only 4 interstate games which everyone would whinge about. So I doubt the AFL will schedule Collingwood to play in Geelong

Yep, the answer as always is to have Collingwood play all its home games at the MCG. That means we only need 3 away games to get to our contracted 14 at the G (which we would normally get even if the fixture was random) and frees up another 2 games to be played at Kardinia Park or Docklands or wherever.

But the odds are that the same people who exclaim loudly that Geelong should have all its home games at its home ground would complain equally loudly that Collingwood should not get all their home games at their home ground.

 

[kirky]

I'm hearing Collingwood fans will set a record for tantrums in the lead up to round 9 cause they have to play an away game against Geelong for the first time in a quarter of a century. The horror!

They will need to use Google Maps to find how to get there.

 

[____]

North home games in WA confirmed

West coast at Hands Oval on 8 June.
Fremantle at Perth Stadium on 14 June.

 

[JPetro83]

They will need to use Google Maps to find how to get there.

I heard Collingwood will get a private jet to fly from Melb to Geelong

 

[parano1a]

West coast at Hands Oval on 8 June.

What is the capacity of this ground? How much will the league have to spend on facilities for broadcast, club rooms, umpires etc? Or will the WA Government cover this?

 

[hawkman]

I heard Collingwood will get a private jet to fly from Melb to Geelong

And then chopper in from Avalon?

 

[qlderlions]

I can't believe Collingwood are involved in this garbage again.

I firmly believe opening round derailed our 2024 season and was the primary reason we didn't make finals. Finished 1 game out of finals, but lost the first 3 games. Even winning just 1 of those first 3 games would have got us into the top 8.

Yes, Brisbane won the Grand Final, but they also started 0.3, and what stopped our resurgence was the amount of injuries we had throughout the season. Brisbane were lucky to have a good run with minimal injuries.

Opening round does no favors for teams going deep into finals, and is clearly manipulation of the draw to boost the NSW/QLD teams and give them momentum to start the season. 3 of them made the top 8, and Gold Coast had one of their best seasons to date. Also.. Sydney/GWS/Gold Coast all had very strong starts to the season.

AFL = WWE.

Sorry - the Collingwood Injury narrative for 2024 finals miss doesn't stack up.

Brisbane = 4 Season ending ACL injuries (Doodee, Gardnier, Coleman, McCarthy) and we didn't have Ashcroft for the first half of the season. Lachie Neale missed Freo game early and two later in the season with a chronic ankle injury.

SEN did some analysis last month that found that Richmond, Carlton and Brisbane had worse injury runs to walk up 18 first picks than Collingwood did.

If you look back at what happened in the off-season last year Collingwood spent the whole off-season celebrating the premiership around the country so when you hit Round 0 you were massively underdone (mentally and physically).

AFL = WWE. Just like Whately says we should be like the WWE - I love it and we have to compete with Rugby League in the 50% of the population where AFL is not the dominant sport

In QLD/NSW the season needs to start earlier if AFL is going to have any clear air to compete - Rugby League is already back for one week BEFORE opening round in Vegas. The Rugby league season only just finished last week (internationals).

We should be starting a week earlier. The season should start the first week of March for Opening Round which allows Round 1 to be on the public holiday weekend in VIC, TAS, SA. This will allow an extra game at the MCG over the 5 days to maximise impact of Round 1 in Victoria.

 

[Cleavy]

GC, North Melbourne, I wonder who the 3rd club is not playing on Thursday.

West Coast?

EDIT: it's officially Sydney, GWS & West Coast

 

[Fadge]

Sorry - the Collingwood Injury narrative for 2024 finals miss doesn't stack up.

Brisbane = 4 Season ending ACL injuries (Doodee, Gardnier, Coleman, McCarthy) and we didn't have Ashcroft for the first half of the season. Lachie Neale missed Freo game early and two later in the season with a chronic ankle injury.

SEN did some analysis last month that found that Richmond, Carlton and Brisbane had worse injury runs to walk up 18 first picks than Collingwood did.

If you look back at what happened in the off-season last year Collingwood spent the whole off-season celebrating the premiership around the country so when you hit Round 0 you were massively underdone (mentally and physically).

Um....

Do you realise Brisbane finished ahead of Collingwood by only 6 premiership points, and both teams were in similar form late in the season?

It's a pretty fine line.

 

[qlderlions]

I would have thought Rd 0 - Syd v Bris would have been a perfect choice to start the season. Missed opportunity and laziness of behalf of the AFL to just do what they did last year without thinking it’s through.

No point to this - both the games were already sell-outs last season at Gabba/SCG with plenty of exposure later in the season.