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The AFL could be plagued by more Friday night Blues if the match between the Sydney Swans and Carlton, which will open the Indigenous Round for the second time in four years, unfolds the way many expects it to – a blowout.
The clash between the fourth-placed Swans and last-placed Blues will be the third time (of four) in which Brendon Bolton’s men have featured in the AFL’s premium timeslot, which the fixturing department have put down to an anomaly of an early Easter, as well as Anzac Day falling on a Wednesday.
They had already contested two Friday night matches this year, losing to Carlton and the Western Bulldogs in Rounds 3 and 6 respectively, and, after this weekend’s trip to Sydney, have one more against fellow strugglers St Kilda, in Round 17.
They were fairly competitive in the losses to the Pies and Bulldogs, but the Swans at the SCG will be their toughest assignment yet as they return to the scene of their 81-point humiliation from Round 23 last year.
In that match, Lance Franklin kicked ten goals, one more than what the entire Carlton side could manage, to take out his fourth Coleman Medal and continue a pattern of winning it every three years (after first winning it in 2008, and then in 2011, 2014 and last year).
The prospect of the Blues suffering another heavy loss this Friday night will almost certainly force the AFL into not only not scheduling the club for matches in this timeslot next season, but also giving other clubs the chance to shine in it.
Several have questioned why Carlton has been given four Friday night matches – the equal second-most of any club, with Essendon, and only behind the Adelaide Crows – when they have been rebuilding for such a long time.
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“If you’re a Carlton supporter, you’d be feeling a bit embarrassed about the fact that your side, on the back of a developing year, is going to appear on four of the marquee Friday night games, as well as the season opener,” Garry Lyon said upon the release of this year’s fixture in October last year.
Following the Blues’ loss to Collingwood in Round 3, Lyon said: “I don’t care how you justify it, they don’t deserve to be where they are. They had big six games in 2015, then they [the AFL] said, ‘No you’ve got to earn it’, then they didn’t earn it in 2016 and then they’ve handed them all these prime time slots.”
He went on, “My side, Melbourne, hasn’t been worthy of a Friday night slot for five, 10, 15 years, but they’re now getting to the stage where they should. That’s life, that’s the way it goes.”
The club has not made the finals on merit since 2011 (discounting 2013, when the Bombers were demoted from seventh to ninth as punishment for their supplements scandal) and have finished in the bottom four in each of the past three years, finishing 18th in 2015.
It was in that season the Blues lost all six of their Friday night matches, including a record 138-point loss to Hawthorn in Round 17.
The AFL fixturing department reacted savagely to the embarrassing results, wiping them out of the premium timeslot for the 2016 season and making it clear that clubs had to “earn their place” to be given Friday night matches.
However, they were scheduled one Friday night match in 2017, against Port Adelaide at the Oval in Round 5, and despite their continual poor results under Bolton, were given four this season.
The Blues have been on the record as saying that they are in a rebuilding process, which suffered a significant setback when Bryce Gibbs left the club to join the Crows, and Sam Docherty suffered a serious ACL injury 40 days before Christmas last year.
But who would want to watch a developing club like them continue to suffer Friday night humiliation when we could be watching an up-and-coming club like Melbourne?
Jesse Hogan of the Demons (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
In contrast to the Blues’ predicament, the Dees – who have gone through hell and back over the past decade – have been one of the most improved teams this season, with their exciting style of play seeing them win their past two matches by a grand total of 200 points.
Yet they have only one Friday night match this season, and it’s away to Port Adelaide, in Round 14.
Last year, they had a home game in this timeslot against the Swans, who, despite their strong support in Melbourne, don’t regularly draw a large crowd to their games in the city.
The Dees’ match against the Power will be just their fourth Friday night match since the start of the 2012 season, the club having been plagued by uncompetitive performances and the tanking scandal in the interim.
Sydney have, for the most part, taken advantage of the Friday night privileges given to them on a regular basis since the start of the 2012 season, with the relaxing of the anti-siphoning rules allowing primetime matches to be televised earlier on free-to-air in Sydney and Brisbane.
That and their rather controversial acquisition of Buddy Franklin prior to the start of the 2014 season have made them huge television drawcards and they have consistently delivered, even though they are yet to win a flag in the time Buddy has been at the SCG.
The man himself, as well as the rest of John Longmire’s team, will be primed for another big showing in front of what is expected to be a crowd of over 30,000 this Friday, having won their past three matches to displace Adelaide in the top four.
This includes a win over the Hawks at the MCG, in which rookie Ben Ronke kicked seven goals in just his third AFL game, and last week’s win against an improving Brisbane Lions side at the Gabba.
A win for the Swans would see Carlton suffer their 12th consecutive loss in a Friday night match, which should be enough for the AFL to exclude the struggling side from the premium timeslot in 2019.
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