The fixture for 2012 is now released. (Remember, it’s a fixture, not a draw).
Here it is: http://www.afl.com.au/Fixtures/tabid/10586/Default.aspx
So who’s happy and who’s not?
North supporters, please form an orderly queue.
Cue jokes about Collingwood and the MCG.
You all know the drill…
Well, I have the good fortune to be first in the queue….:
5 twilight matches (is this a joke?) and
AGAIN only 1 Friday night game ?
Hopefully, I can find the quote from Gillon McLaughlin in which he said
“All clubs will play at least 2 Friday night matches”. Obviously a non-core
promise. As mad as hell, and I am not going to take it any more !
Smokie, at least they haven’t sent you to Siberia (sorry, Perth) twice in the first month.
The Giants and the Eagles at “Blundstone Arena” (Bellerive, I assume!).
The temperature should be more like Siberia down there.
All you Geelong folk happy about a first-up trip to Freo?
Another pas de deux with your mate Ross.
GWS should have been nick-named the Wanderers. The tune of the song would have made a great club song also. Home games at four different venues.
Seems the Crows have been handed the softest draw. That lot should be done no favours.
For North — better than expected, to be honest.
Already booked plane tickets for Hobart at Easter (though given that the in-laws live down there, would likely have gone then anyway). Bellerive in early April will be a cracking place to watch a game with a Cascade Draught or seven.
Only play one of last year’s top 5 twice. I reckon the Eagles are set to fall back a bit anyway.
Only one Friday, one MCG game and too many twilight games are a bummer but the sort of crap we’ve come to expect. Can we tell yet whether we’re likely to be on free-to-air more than 8 times?
Rob, I quote from the AFL website:
“But they have only eight games on free to air TV (the least of any Victorian club),
and only one Friday night game.”
And this: “All in all, should be happy….”
Rob C, despite few sponsor pleasing Friday night and free to air fixtures in general, I’d say Comrade Andrew has looked after his old club very nicely when you consider their back half of the season. Wet sail.
The number of free-to-air games each club has received has an eerie Premiership premonition feel about it…
Carlton – 17
Essendon – 16
Collingwood – 15
That’s gold, Litza. And I’m sure it brings you hope. Maybe the Almanac could set aside a file for all the divinations, illuminations and revelations for everyone’s superstitious projections; be they a grandma’s tea-leaf reading, paranoid-schizophrenic cousin’s unsettlingly accurate declaration, or the suredness of your Balkan bred neighbour’s christmas fowl’s entrails.
Happy with the North draw. Have had to put up with hardly any MCG and Friday night games for a few years now, so doesn’t bother me anymore. We’re better off trying to make the twilight spot our own instead of getting Friday nights back because, lets face it, it ain’t gonna happen.
For the 10th season in a row Dogs and Carlton meet only once.
How does that happen ?
MCR
Hello team Almanac,
this happy Sainter loves the draw, we only play Geelong, Hawthorn, and Collingwood once, and not our home games. We get lots of time to build up over the season before hitting these three teams, 2 towards the end. Only 2 afternoon matches, most twilight or night. A few six day turn arounds and lots of interstate travelling, but all in all, bring it on. Once again, we have an away game to kick off the season, but that allows me to see the rematch of Hawthorn and Collingwood in the first round with my step son and his wife who are Hawks. Can’t wait to see what Watters can do (and our two new young gun forwards.) Even Milney, he kicked the first goal at the International Last night, looking good, though the game bored me silly. Half soccer and half sort of football, and we got trounced as well…..
Yvette
Yvette
Apparently the Pies players asked for personalised Loos and Bidets built into the seat infront of their lockers at the MCG.
They believed it was too far to travel up the hall if the need was there.
Fortunately the AFL canned the idea.
RobC,
give yourself an extra day to get to the ground and if you are hiring a car you will need another day to walk from where you parked it to the ground and double that for the trip back.
The ground parking arrangements are like the good old days parking in the streets near Victoria Park.
There are still people who haven’t got home from the test match two years ago when Ponting made a double ton.
Phantom , you are ridiculous and funny , and obviously still smiling.
I couldn’t care less who plays who, when and where. I just want to see a half decent contest sometime , somewhere.
Apart from the usual (ineffective) Phanto stir, I notice there hasn’t been much of a whinge about Collingwood’s “advantages.” Nor should there be. Collingwood has been handed a dog of a draw. Yes we get only five interstate games but all our repeat games are against teams in this year’s top eight. And not only five from the top eight but the five teams I would consider most likely to join Collingwood in next year’s top six.
I doubt if there is a single Pie supporter who wouldn’t swap their second games against Hawthorn and Geelong for interstate trips against Port Adelaide and Gold Coast. Travelling doesn’t bother the Magpies, they have lost about one road game in the last three years. Last season no team bothered Collingwood except Geeelong (well Hawthorn in the Prelim, but we did beat them). Next year I would expect both the Hawks and the Eagles to play better than they did this year.
Collingwood gets more MCG games than others because it is good for the AFL (crowds and TV ratings) For the same reason the AFL has organised two matches each this season against the other three top four sides. I think the Pies will have a good enough team to reach the Grand Final even with this draw, but given that this is a harder draw than that handed to this year’s Premiers, I am hoping that even Phantom will realise his good luck and stop whingeing about the Pies’ draw.
It was some of my very best work Dave and you just fob it off as ineffective. I am hurt.
I think the lesson that has been learned in this draw is the difference between the draft draw and the final one.
In the draft draw the Pies weren’t going west. The AFL tried to slip it through but there was a substantial amount of concern expressed from around the nation and a backflip ensued. Keep it up folks.
Crowds and ratings may well be good for the political elite and main beneficeries of the game but that arguement sniffs of bougeois commarade.
There may be another take to the apparent annus horribilis that Australia’s new football royalty must endure next season.
By giving the Pies a roster that resembles the inconvenience that the proletariat must endure year after year they may be sending their love child a ‘tough love’ cup of concrete message to get them to harden up.
I am sure it will be a long time before they have to travel west in two out of three weeks (with a bye in between) or west then to Brisbane in the middle of the season.
Or perhaps west in the first round instead of being given the opportunity for an Olympic Opening Ceremony spectacular like unveiling of their flag.
I am sure the Pies wouldn’t have to wait till round 4 had their dynasty developed to plan.
Dave second games against Geelong and Hawthorn would be Pies away games no doubt. I suppose it would be strategicly unsound to share the treasure with other, yes other, big drawing clubs. That would be too democratic. Sounds a bit capitalistic to me.
Western Sydney and Port Adelaide would be nice and cushie but you don’t need to be playing soft teams all the time. You have to play tough games throughout the season to prepare for tough teams in the finals. (Refer to season 2011.)
And I have no sympathy with any team that believe they have awful draws. Many of the Geelong ones over the years have reminded me of the time I used to hang my great grannies bloomers on the line for “bob a job’
As an Adelaide fan I’m pretty happy with the draw. That said – I’ve been happy with the last 2 draws and a fat lot of good they’ve done us in the end. lol
The draw is only soft if you’re good enough to make it that way. Hopefully coach Sando and his new crew can take things to another level next year and make the most of it.
A Catter’s perspective: the Geelong Football Club is happy with the draw, so I’m happy. We play Collingwood & Hawthorn twice each, and they are always cracker games. The club obviously looks forward to testing themselves with the best rather than avoiding challenging contests in order to maximise win-loss ratios.
Only thing I would rather see is the home game against GWS played here in Sydney, if only for purely selfish reasons. In all likelihood, I’ll be at the Cat’s games vs Swans up here and Lions in Brisneyland (wife has rels there who invited us up for a hol, so I earned Frequent Family Points and ensured that it will coincide with that game). Plus at least one game – possibly two – in Melbourne.
GWS & the Swans will, as usual, see far of me in my Cats’ club colours than my own club. :lol:
@John Butler: don’t mind opening in Freo, especially as they’re not sending us to Queensland for the very next game.
Freo fans should be living in interesting times as it is.
Now I can plan out my away trips. Adelaide at Easter is a definite go, as is Sydney in Round 10. Likely to go to either Collingwood Rd 6 or Gold Coast in Darwin Rd 8, finances will dictate if I’ll go to both, perhaps a hit and run mission in Darwin (enter the Afternoon, exit early next morning on a 1AM flight to Brisbane!) Not that happy that we’re going to be in Brisbane in the final round, mainly because that will clash with the local GF which we’ve played in the last 2 years. Perhaps will end up going to a mid season game in Melbourne too depending on rostered days at work and costs of course.
Even worse, the first 5 games on Fox I don’t think will assist financially unless we get big crowds to home games against the Eagles (unlikely) or St.Kilda (perhaps break even at best). Finally, why do we need a bye in an 18 team competition?