Attendance records may be broken on Friday night in an all-Melbourne derby when the Richmond Tigers and Collingwood Magpies meet in the first preliminary final. This is The Roar’s guide to watching the game online and on TV.
The game is advertised to begin at 7:50pm (AEST) on Friday, September 21 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
It will be the first time the two sides have met in the finals since 1980. And a bumper crowd is expected after Collingwood drew 80,000 for their last-start victory over the Giants while Richmond cracked the century as they took down Hawthorn.
Richmond have been rated a strong chance of securing back-to-back flags this year and will be confident having beaten the Magpies in both their meetings this year.
In fact, Collingwood haven’t beaten the Tigers in a final since 1937.
But the Magpies haven’t had much trouble overcoming adversity in 2018, claiming a preliminary final berth despite a string of injuries.
Nathan Buckley’s men led by 22 goals at the first-quarter break before holding out a resilient Giants outfit by 10 points.
You can catch all the action from the preliminary finals on Fox Footy Channel 504.
The game is available for Foxtel customers on channel 258, although you will need the relevant high-definition pacakage.
Foxtel customers who are prefer free-to-air broadcaster Seven’s coverage can tune into the game on channels 107 and 207 for standard and high definition respectively.
Either way, you must of course have valid Foxtel TV subscription if you wish to watch Friday night’s game.
The Seven Network will also be broadcasting all of the matches from this year’s finals series, although the exact channel each game will be shown on depends on what state or region you are in.
If either of this week’s games aren’t on Channel Seven, they can be found on their digital back-up channels, being 7mate and Seven Two (channels 73 and 72 respectively).
Meanwhile, Channel Seven’s coverage is on channels 70 and 71 in high and standard definition.
If you are uncertain about times in your local area, make sure to check online guides.
With tickets selling out fast, if you miss out there are several ways you can catch Friday night’s all-Melbourne derby online.
The first option is through Foxtel’s live streaming applications. There are two applications you can choose from, either Foxtel Now or the Foxtel App.
Otherwise, the AFL’s Live Pass service can be used to tune into the games online. Every match of the AFL finals can be streamed live via the AFL app on Android, iOS or Windows mobile devices.
This service does cost money though, with a monthly pass available for around $14.99 per month while a weekly pass can be purchased at $4.99 per month.
You can watch the games if you are overseas through Watch AFL.
Otherwise, we will have you covered here at The Roar with a dedicated live blog of the game as well as highlights once the final whistle is blown.