AFL Fixture 2017

The 2017 AFL fixture is out

 

http://www.afl.com.au/fixture

About John Harms

JTH is a writer, publisher, speaker, historian. He is publisher and contributing editor of The Footy Almanac and footyalmanac.com.au. He has written columns and features for numerous publications. His books include Confessions of a Thirteenth Man, Memoirs of a Mug Punter, Loose Men Everywhere, Play On, The Pearl: Steve Renouf's Story and Life As I Know It (with Michelle Payne). He appears (appeared?) on ABCTV's Offsiders. He can be contacted [email protected] He is married to The Handicapper and has three school-age kids - Theo, Anna, Evie. He might not be the worst putter in the world but he's in the worst four. His ambition was to lunch for Australia but it clashed with his other ambition - to shoot his age.

Comments

  1. Neil Anderson says

    Hard to complain after a quick look at the fixture. A lot’s happened in the last two years when the Dogs were given the last match of Round 1 in Perth in the heat, at the end of the day.
    A heap of prime-time matches, hardly any grave-yard shifts on Sundays. I usually check to see if we play last year’s finalists twice and at what venue as the main guide for the new season. I think we play five finalists twice but for once, we have beaten all those teams this year at home and interstate, so the pressure is off.
    The last hurdle for the Dogs is trying to beat Geelong. We play them once at Geelong.

  2. Stone Cold Steve Baker says

    One trip to Adelaide, one trip to Perth, Melbourne at Etihad and not the ‘G for the Bombers.

    Pinch me!

  3. Dave Brown says

    You could call it a Thymosin Beta Draw…

  4. Hawks mysteriously get the O’Meara deal over the line then get gifted the easiest start to a season since North in 2016!! Something smelly going on there.

  5. Phillip Dimitriadis says

    Pies and Bucks could easily be 0-4 heading into ANZAC Day. Interesting times…

  6. Have to say as a North supporter, I am extremely happy with our draw and we should be able to make an impact next year, or Scott, out that door son, and don’t come back…

  7. Barkly St End says

    Dogs are flavour of the month!

  8. Andrew Madsen says

    Thank god we don’t have to watch Collingwood, Essendon & Carlton every Friday night, as we have for way too long. Will be good to see good teams in prime time.
    Doggies & GWS a breath of much needed fresh air.
    Cheers

  9. Scott McIntyre says

    The second the draw dropped, our club (the Dees) started spruiking the fact that we have no home games at Etihad, which made us all smell a rat. Sure enough – 2 of the first 3 weeks we have to haul arse down to that dreary, soulless, funeral parlour of a joint for away games. 4 times all up in the first 13 weeks we’re playing Victorian-based teams at that horrible venue.

    Now that the AFL owns the place, surely bulldozing it must be high on the priority list.

  10. Mark Duffett says

    From a purely selfish point of view, very happy the Crows are coming to Hobart again.

  11. My thoughts on St Kilda’s 2017 fixture:

    I’m sad that we won’t play Carlton or Bulldogs twice. I feel being unfair we have two Adelaide Oval games with two SA clubs. One of them should travel to Melbourne to play at Docklands.

    On the other hand, I am happy to have four Friday night games that is bright. It’s a good proof how we played well in 2016 as well as playing Swans and Eagles twice.

    We need to find how to play well interstates. And I hope we can. Then St Kilda could be top four.

    Go Saints!

    Yoshi

  12. Mark 'Swish' Schwerdt says

    Your gain is my loss Mark D

    Crows play over here in Rounds 2, 11, 15, 19, 21, so might need to plan a trip down your way and/or an Easter trip home to get my footy fix quota.

  13. From my selfish perspective (is there any other?) it looks great. I agree with Andrew Madsen regarding Friday night football. After giving Carlton all those prized matches a couple seasons ago which they collectively lost by about nine light-years, it seems the AFL has awakened from this head-fuzz.

    However, I don’t want a twilight grand final. Tell Channel 7 to bugger off. I do like that the Saturday preliminary final now seems to be at this time. Leave it at this.

  14. Ben Footner says

    Very happy from an Adelaide perspective. Love the amount of Friday night games, although that are a challenge to get to.

  15. My spin classes make sweat, breathless and feel a sense of accomplishment. Gary Pert describes the far too many sunday games in 2017 as more “family friendly”. Go figure.

    Looks like channel 7 wants to lose revenue.

    3 games at Docklands & 6 interstate games. Still, okaying the french bulldogs in round 1 at the G with Cloke gives the game some spice

  16. It’s hard for me to pick which game to watch at the stadium in 2017.

    If I still work and live in Kyoto (although I am leaving the work next week and have to find a new one asap), June would be good to go to Melbourne.

    We only host a home game against Gold Coast in June, but I want to watch the game against another Victorian club.

    If I compromise to watch an away game, North Melbourne vs St Kilda in Round 13 would be nice.

    Alternative options are:
    St Kilda vs Carlton (Rd 8)
    St Kilda vs Sydney (Rd9)
    Western Bulldogs vs St Kilda (Rd 10)

    I hope I can get a job soon so that I could travel to Melbourne next year to watch footy. And another hope is getting a local job while visiting Melbourne.

    Cheers

    Yoshi

  17. Earl O'Neill says

    I’m gonna miss Satarvo footy on telly.

  18. Neil Anderson says

    I will be at the Saints/ Dogs match Round 10 Yoshi. It would be great to see you there if you can make it.
    Cheers
    Neil.

  19. Not much fazed either way about Port Adelaide draw, but I think the China thing is too big a distraction, wish they would get the football right before exporting the brand. Having said that, if it does prove a success, how long do you reckon before Collingwood, Carlton et al try to muscle in. Bit like Friday nights pioneered by north Melbourne, then elbowed.

  20. Daniel Flesch says

    Dips , not at all sure the Hawks have the easy start to the season you say they have. Round 1 without this year’s 1st. and 2nd. b. & f . players and new boys fitting in, against a revved-up Essendon. Then Crows who’ll probably beat them and Suns (away) Next the Cats who beat Hawks last meeting and Eagles ,ditto. Then Saints who nearly (and should’ve ) won last time and Demons who did.They should beat Brisbane next but no sure things for Pies (lucky Hawks 1 point win Rd.23 this year) , Swans (away) and Port (away after 6 day break) They could be 2 wins , 9 losses by Round 11 . Probably not , unless they do a Freo. 2016 , but it’s hardly the easy start like North had this year. Can’t help wondering what you think a difficult start would look like, especially with plenty of people happily predicting Hawthorn won’t even make the Finals .

  21. Mark Duffett says

    You’d be more than welcome, Swish.

    In other good news, stats guru Tony Corke reckons Adelaide has the easiest draw: http://www.matterofstats.com/mafl-stats-journal/2016/10/27/the-2017-afl-draw-difficulty-and-distortion-dissected (warning: wonk factor 9)

    A more general comment. I haven’t warmed to Thursday night football, at all, but apparently it’s been deemed successful. 6 games. Blech.

  22. G’day Neil and Mickey,

    Neil- Thanks for telling me that you will be at Bulldogs vs Saints game. I hope to watch that gameas well as our home game against Swans and to see you at Docklands.

    Mickey – I agree with you about the Grand Final schedule. I want to keep it on Saturday afternoon. Also we should say no thank you to Kevin Sheedy and others who want the twilight GF.

    Cheers

    Yoshi

  23. Dips

    As Dylan said, we can’t help it if we’re lucky!

    They say I shot a man named Gray
    And took his wife to Italy
    She inherited a million bucks
    And when she died it came to me
    I can’t help it if I’m lucky

    Cheers

  24. 1, Piss off AFL – this is not footy season.
    2. There are whiskers all over this fixture.
    Why would Carlton play a home game v Adelaide at MCG (R15), but home games against Geelong (R19) and Hawthorn (R22) at Blocklands?
    Why would Collingwood play home games at Blocklands? R4: Collingwood v St Kilda (their ground) , R18: Collingwood v WCoast. Many other examples. Cutting of commercial deals more important than on-field equity. Undermines the “competition.”
    3. The ongoing misplaced logic of deciding which teams play opponents once or twice in the 18-team, 23-round world. Form of previous year(s) not a great predictive tool for forecasting form of the next year. Overhaul needed – play everyone twice, or play everyone once. Even it up.
    4. The week off after R23 – unnecessarily lengthens the season by a week, False logic used to justify the ongoing experiment (some finals games were close, finals TV audiences were up(?) – neither of which are related by cause and effect).
    5. Could also usefully include a running sheet to AFL 12-month-media-announcement cycle; including: two-and-a-half week stretch of trade period announcements, rolling 4-day fixture announcement, various draft announcements, pre-season announcements, etc. As well as assorted “XYZ theme round” announcements.

  25. Mick Jeffrey says

    Now that it’s out I’m able to plan a tentative schedule for the year. With my commitments expanding (more on that shortly) I’m happy with the draw even though I’ll be at the ground for more of our away games than home. Actually not that happy about Good Friday (it’s a travel day for me, and really it’s a tune out day as I often don’t take notice of the RL games played either) but I suppose I’ll have to make sure I’m on the earliest flight possible.

    TENTATIVE SCHEDULE
    ROUND 4: North Melbourne vs BULLDOGS (Docklands, Good Friday), Melbourne vs Fremantle (MCG, Saturday Afternoon), Carlton vs Gold Coast (Docklands, Saturday Night)
    ROUND 12: Sydney vs BULLDOGS (SCG, Thursday Night)
    ROUND 15: Gold Coast vs North Melbourne (Carrara, Saturday Twilight, GC Marathon weekend)
    ROUND 18: BULLDOGS vs Gold Coast (Cairns, Saturday Twilight, probably the last hurrah this time with Ballarat now up and running. Hopefully another club if not us can sustain this fixture, if only to get their diehards out of the Melbourne Cold)
    ROUND 20: Brisbane vs BULLDOGS (Gabba, Saturday Twilight, Hopefully the Old Man who is a Lions Fan will pay for this one! Maybe even an early morning road trip before a slow wind through Brisbane establishments are in order!)
    ROUND 21: BULLDOGS vs GWS (Docklands, Friday Night, pending work and finances), Sydney vs Fremantle (SCG, Saturday Afternoon, City2Surf weekend, pending suitable flight. If an NRL game is scheduled in the Sydney area that afternoon I’ll probably have a look too)
    ROUND 23: West Coast vs Adelaide (Subiaco, TBD, pending time of game and getting a ticket. Possibly the last hurrah for Subiaco as a venue. Perth City to Surf weekend)

    The reason why I’m actually happy for the Thursday Nighter at the SCG is this. The weekend before (our Bye Round, even better timing) the intention is to head to South Africa to have a crack at the famous Comrades Marathon. Start line is outside Durban’s Town Hall, the finish line is at the Racecourse in Pietermaritzberg, some 88km and a number of hills away. Time limit to complete the course is 12 hours, and strictly 12 hours, with cut off points along the course, so I may or may not get to the finish like many others. Fly out on the 31st of May, return the night before the game is the intention. Just the icing on the big cake perhaps.

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