Who has had the toughest draw so far?

Yeah and assumption are mother of all f ups aren't they get real

Yeah I am brain surgeon just like you

Don't give up your day job mate! - (I'm making an assumption here) ;-)

18 teams 23 rounds everyone play each other once and then there's 5 games where a team you have already played you play again big deal what storm in a teacup just a pack of bloody sooks freo this this and Geelong this this and that port boohoo hoo pies have got the easiest draw blah blah blah Sydney whaa whaa whaa get real wake up to yourselves if your whining about the draw you don't have much confidence in your teams chances then do you knobs

So you are saying Geelong has short breaks while traveling interstate against top teams and long breaks when playing home against easy sides ... and somehow that balances things out and becomes fair?

That's just naive Jack. Being able to "bank" wins throughout the season is critical to having your best shot at the flag. It affords the luxury of resting players with niggling injuries leading up to the Finals, refreshing your list, being able to cruise in third gear if you have shored up your top 4 posi already, experiment with combinations, tinker with strategies without anywhere near the same regard as when you are struggling to get the wins to qualify. Ross Lyon even managed to rest half his team in the last game before the finals last year and were subsequently thrashed by the Saints but it didn't matter because he had already banked the wins and his mind was on the GF. . You can plan all you like, just because the FIXture is known doesn't make it any easier or fairer. If certain teams are sufficiently advantaged by the "draw" eg. play weaker teams twice, they are simply inclined to Bank more wins. Remember, it isn't a draw Jack, it's a planned Fixture that can be manipulated in anyway the AFL wishes.

If you read my comment Jack it is the collective FIXture that is part of the AFLs equalisation toolbox designed to advantage or disadvantage teams - but it certainly isn't designed to "equalise them equally". We're not talking about a bye in isolation. In the case of the example I gave above one team was fully rested and another was asked to play 3 games in 12 days when it was not necessary to schedule it that way. The result was players were unable to get up/or injured and the rest were clearly still fatigued. It doesnt mean that the AFLs strategies work all the time, but that is clearly the intention in FIXturing things that way. How about you do some homework on the stats of the outcome of that type of lopsided match up Jack and get back to us? If the AFL was interested in a fair match up, the very least they could have done was not schedule an extraordinary Thursday night game after 2 consecutive six day breaks including a trip to WA and Sydney to make it 3 consecutive 6 day breaks for the Cats. Is that the way you would schedule things if you wanted a "best team wins" match up Jack? If you think playing 3 games in 12 days including travelling the breadth of the country to do so is not a disadvantage, then I'm certain I'm talking to someone that has never played.

If you have a look at the fixture, Geelong fans will not be complaining about their breaks in the weeks to come. Use the excuse of who was being playe...that is relative. Not something known when fixture is made. Overal, it balances itself out.

Despite the Swans having a poor record off the bye previously...check history before you comment on the beneficial nature of the bye. Some clubs perform poorly,others do not. Geelong and the Swans both have performed poorly off the bye in previous years. Swans broke that this year. Even though John mostly the best team has won the premiership in all years previous for a very long time. Tha, or made the GF where if you lose it can only be yourself to blame.

No question they won't remember that Smithy. Mind you I think it works for the Dockers - they've got time to recover through the softer part of their draw, build some form and get some key players fit for the tough run at the end of the year, which is itself a much better build up to tough finals than easy wins against bottom 10 sides. If they can get Sylvia, Gumbleton and Morrabito fit and firing by finals time you'd have to think they're going to be very hard to stop.

Yes they do quickly become irrelevant - have a look at the earlier article (link in first sentence of this article) with those stats. Side by side these stats are very interesting, well worth tracking year to year.

Draw - definition: Noun - an act of selecting names randomly to decide winners in a lottery! Opponents in a sporting contest etc No, what we have here is a FIXture with the emphasis on the FIX. The AFL simply use the fixture as another tool in helping to augment the outcomes they desire. Six day break mapping, not just how many, but when and against whom and with what travel between?, who gets the home game when two top teams will meet only once? Repeat encounters against top teams (or bottom teams) Etc etc. none of this occurs by means of a "draw", it's planned, manipulated. Ask yourself why on earth would a Thursday night game be scheduled for Sydney v Geelong on the back of a bye for the Swans and it then becoming the 3rd game in 12 days for the cats on the back of interstate travel? Just back luck you say, the fixture gods aligning the planets? The game could have been scheduled for Friday night or Saturday or even Sunday or Monday to give some respite to the Cats given their 3 games in 12 days. But this was not the intention, and we all know what happened as a result. This was not "luck of the draw", luck doesn't come into it, its scheduled, its purposeful. It's another "equalisation" measure - though it's hardly equal. Think of the teams whose stocks the AFL wish to rise and those teams whose stocks the AFL wish to fall - then look into the details of the "draw" and you will see its a handicapped horse race, each team carrying a different weight under the saddle, though at least in a horse race they are all racing at the same venue and the barrier draw is in fact a lottery! At the end of the day, in a handicap event like the AFL season, the winner isn't necessarily the best horse in the race. The AFL is not interested in ensuring the best team wins the Premiership. It's playing a game of chess and clubs are just pawns in the game.... and by extension so are we all.

Swans, Power and Geelong have all overcome their tough draws so far. Geelong might drop, not because they will fall out of top 4, but because others will rise to push them out.

Good point, Aransan. You'd much rather play Melbourne or Sydney in the first couple of rounds, Brisbane in that stretch from rounds 3 -10, Carlton early in the season, Essendon, Hawthorn and maybe Geelong in the middle of the season. Tough to know how to incorporate that in any meaningful way, though. Trying to factor that in I reckon it's a wash for the Dockers. They were unlucky to hit Hawthorn in round 3, but maybe luckier to hit Sydney fairly early and Geelong a bit later on. Still couldn't quite get over Sydney, of course. The really interesting one in that list is North Melbourne. Everyone was agreed at the start of the year that their draw was pretty soft, yet there they sit in equal second. However, they were lucky to hit Sydney and Freo when those teams had a lot of players unavailable. Still impressive wins, of course.

It's not hyperbole to suggest that Freo's first nine rounds of 2014 would have been the most difficult stretch in AFL history. It's just the facts. You'd have to look back to Eagles fixtures in the early '90s to find a nine-week stretch that was close for miles travelled, quality of opposition, and number of six day breaks. Freo had four six day breaks in nine weeks. That including two back-to-back which in which they lost to Sydney away and North at home. The other was an away game against Hawthorn. The loss to Port was also off a six day break but that followed a two game stretch at Subi Oval. As a 2013 GF team this may be deserved but keep it in mind when you hear references to Freo's "easy" draw in the mid-part of the season.

Yep Cats draw has been a very testing one for sure, with just a few more lower sides sprinkled in there is all. I'd still say the Dockers would trump them in terms of the draw (especially if you're including 6-day breaks into the equation, the Dockers had 4 of them in the first 9 rounds, including back to back ones leading into the North game).

I believe teams have been up and down more this year than usual, teams might be up for a few rounds and then down again for a few rounds. Your analysis doesn't take this into account, a team might be unlucky to meet opponents playing out of their skins in several matches. St. Kilda started the season well, Sydney badly and now the roles have been reversed. It would be interesting to develop an analysis that took this into account to some extent.

While not arguing the Dockers had a tough schedule, Cats played all the top 8 except for Gold Coast, had three 6 day breaks and away against Port, Freo and Sydney (the away game at Sydney on back to back 6 day breaks vs. a team off a 13 day bye break no less).