The Roar
The Roar

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The bye week is staying because the AFL - and nobody else - says so

Gillon McLachlan says there's no chance of a Tasmanian AFL team in the near future (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Editor
18th October, 2016
29

The decision of the AFL to retain the pre-finals bye week is astounding.

On the one hand, you can understand the AFL’s logic behind the move; top-eight teams head into September well-rested and raring to go, and fans aren’t disincentivised to go to final-round matches by the looming threat of finals-bound clubs resting players.

On the other hand, it’s an idea which just didn’t work this year. At all. The reasons against the pre-finals week far outweigh those in favour.

The AFL’s one-week pre-finals sabbatical completely stalled the momentum heading into the finals. This season had one of the closest-fought top eights in recent memory, yet once the finals’ finishing order was sorted, footy fans were left with nothing to do for the best part of two weeks other than speculate about Travis Cloke’s future (speaking of which, does anyone know what’s happening with that Bulldogs trade?).

The meagre offerings of premature free-agent and trade rumours were no substitute for the rabid and frenzied excitement about the first week of finals footy.

Not only was it depressingly boring, it gave the AFL’s cross-code rivals, the NRL, a week as Australia’s top sporting dog.

It’s hardly taking the ‘do what your opponent least wants you to do’ approach to Australia’s ongoing code war.

More importantly, the pre-finals bye has turned what was once a massive advantage into a disadvantage.

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A first-up win for a top-four team was once a significant benefit come finals time. Not only was there the significant psychological advantage of getting a win over a genuine premiership contender, but the luxury of having a week off in between the qualifying and preliminary finals would ensure a team’s players were raring to go for the grand final qualifiers.

On the evidence of this year, those sides aren’t ‘well-rested’ anymore. They’re rusty.

The AFL says the pre-finals bye “strongly contributed to brilliant September football with best players being able to be as fit/well-prepared as possible.” Tell that to the GWS Giants and Geelong Cats.

Steve Johnson Toby Greene GWS Giants AFL Finals 2016

Both sides had earned the week off, yet both ended up losing in their preliminary finals – the Giants went down in a heartbreaker (or heartwarmer, depending on your point of view) against the Bulldogs, while the Cats were blown off the part by the Swans.

Those calling “coincidence” are simply looking for a convenient answer. I prefer to believe playing just one game in the preceding three weeks or so had a hell of a lot to do with GWS and Geelong’s losses.

One game in the best part of three weeks certainly isn’t the recipe for being as “well-prepared as possble.”

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There’s also the issue of the bye benefitting only half of the competition. Prior to the introduction of the pre-finals bye, the AFL Players Association had been calling for a second week off during the season in order to give players a physical and mental break.

The logic of creating the space in the season for a second week off, only to stick it at the end of the season, out of the reach of more than half the side in the comp, was baffling.

Persevering with such a policy is doubly so, particularly after the post-season failures of Geelong and GWS this year.

Fans of the policy will point to the success of the Western Bulldogs as evidence of its benefits; without the pre-finals bye, it’s hard to imagine the injury-ravaged men from Footscray taking anything close to a full-strength side over to Perth for their first-week clash with the Eagles.

However, having an extra bye mid-season may have prevented some of their injuries occurring in the first place – that’s certainly part of the logic behind the AFLPA’s call for a second bye during the season.

But, for better or worse (almost certainly worse), fans and players are stuck with this week of mandatory boredom on the eve of the most exciting part of the season. One can only hope it’s just here to stay for the one additional year.

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