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Ahead of the 2012 AFL fixture launch last Friday, the AFL corrected reports that Collingwood wouldn’t travel to Perth next year and, in the process, boasted about the travel demands of all Victorian clubs next year.
“All Victorian clubs will have at least five matches outside the state,” reported AFL.com.au.
While that statement would’ve been met with the approval of many seeking more fairness in the AFL fixture – our own Ben Somerford was campaigning for such a stance last week – we would find out on Friday that the devil was unfortunately in the detail.
When the fixture was finally released it was apparent that for one club, five matches outside Victoria did not, evidently, mean five away matches outside Victoria.
In fact, Hawthorn ended up with a mere three away games outside of Melbourne.
Yep, that’s right. Despite the introduction of Gold Coast and GWS in the past two years, the AFL have still – in 2012 – managed to give a club three interstate away games for an entire season. It was almost impossible to fathom.
Of course, Hawthorn still qualify for having “at least five matches outside the state” because four of their home games will take place at Launceston’s Aurora Stadium. But as we all know, those games are very much home games. Certainly, they don’t present the same challenge as travelling interstate to another club’s home ground.
The Hawks will travel to play West Coast at Patersons Stadium, Port Adelaide at AAMI Stadium and Sydney at the SCG next year. Beyond that, though, every other game will be in either Melbourne or Tasmania. (Worse, all bar two of the Melbourne games will be at the MCG.)
While the AFL obviously didn’t lie with its proclamation last week, it’s safe to say what they put out was at the very least misleading. To compare the Hawks playing a game in Tassie with another club heading to Perth, as one of their six proper interstate trips, is ludicrous – especially when it’s used to talk up the fairness of the fixture, as was the case last week.
It’s all very unfortunate. When you exclude Hawthorn from the equation, every Victorian club travels five or six times – a wonderful thing considering the discrepancies of the past.
But, of course, all that means nothing if there’s one club that’s excluded, and excluded not just by one game but two.
Now sure, anyone can pick up on a quirk of the AFL fixture and make a big song and dance about it. And admittedly, outgoing Hawks president Jeff Kennett wasn’t in a mood to gloat about his club’s fixture last week.
“(The list of negatives) includes playing five of our seven home games at the MCG against interstate teams, the majority of which will be on a Sunday, and all at varying times,” Kennett wrote to members. “The impact of this will be two-fold. Firstly; our attendances, which have averaged in excess of 50,000 at home games … will drop to around 30,000 at best.”
However, that was looking at Hawthorn’s draw from a commercial perspective. From an on-field perspective, even if they do face Collingwood and Geelong in the first two weeks, the lack of true interstate matches is a huge advantage.
The question, though, is why have Hawthorn been given this advantage when no other club has?
Maybe the AFL are rewarding them for the “sacrifice” they make by playing in Tasmania. Then again, surely the income Tasmania generates for the club is reward enough – and how could that be if North Melbourne, the other part-time Tassie team, will be making twice as many interstate trips as the away team?
Sadly, once again the release of the fixture has been plagued by questions over its fairness.