THE AFL today wrote to all clubs to advise the AFL Commission had approved a change to the 22-match fixture structure whereby each club would now have two byes through the season comprising 22 matches across 25 weeks, starting from next year’s 2014 Toyota AFL Premiership Season. As part of the introduction of a second bye to better manage the workload on players and clubs throughout the year, the premiership season will now commence with a split round across the weekends of March 14-16 and March 21-23 (five matches and four matches respectively on those two weekends). The pre-season period will be revitalised to feature two matches per Club scheduled nationally, with a continued focus on regional areas that don’t normally host premiership matches, as well as matches in metropolitan areas and managing the travel load across all teams. In place of the NAB Cup Grand Final, the AFL is currently considering options for a representative-style game in the final week of the pre-season, together with intra-club matches for all teams, before round one gets underway. AFL General Manager - Broadcasting, Scheduling and Major Projects Simon Lethlean said the first group of club byes were likely to be across rounds 8-10 (three weeks of six matches per round) with the second group of club byes to be placed in the run to the finals in the region of rounds 18-19 (one week of five matches and one week of four matches). All up, clubs would each play 22 games across 25 weeks through March 14-16 (week one of round one) to August 29-31. The structure for the Toyota AFL Finals Series remains unchanged from the current top eight format.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 03:29:11 +0000
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