Five winners and five losers from the 2023 AFL fixture: Grand finalist's brutal run, Blues' prime-time bonanza

The AFL fixture has been released for 2023 – and like always, some things have changed while others have stayed the same.

Yet again, the big Victorian clubs of Collingwood, Carlton and Richmond dominate the marquee days and primetime slots; yet again, Geelong have been blessed with a fixture seemingly far kinder than their status as reigning premiers should allow; and yet again, just about every single fan feels like their club has been screwed over by the league.

As always, though, a new draw brings a new batch of teams into the spotlight: the AFL finally seems to have worked out Brisbane are one of the most watchable good teams in the competition with a swathe of Thursday and Friday night games; Essendon have been drawn to play the Cats at GMHBA Stadium for just the second time since the 1990s; and the league has seen fit to decide it was the Western Bulldogs’ fault 32,000 showed up for last year’s Good Friday, giving their spot to Carlton.

So what to make of it all? Here are five big winners and five major losers out of the 2023 AFL fixture.

>> HEAD HERE FOR THE FULL AFL DRAW FOR 2023

Winners

Carlton

For a side that spent 22 of 23 rounds last year inside the top eight (we all know which round they spent out), the Blues have been handed a fixture that seems, on paper, to tremendously aid their chances of a first finals appearance since 2013.

Four of the teams they play twice (GWS, Gold Coast, St Kilda and West Coast) finished last year outside the eight, while the Eagles and Giants both finished in the bottom four. As for their two top-eight double-ups in Collingwood and Melbourne, they fell heartbreakingly short of beating both of them in the final two rounds of 2022.

Then there’s a perfectly reasonable run of interstate games to consider: they leave Melbourne just six times in the home-and-away season, with three of them to face the Giants, Suns and Eagles. Indeed, trips to face Fremantle and Sydney are probably the only times they’ll board a plane as underdogs before finals.

Perhaps the only negative is that they begin the season with back-to-back games against Richmond, a hot tip for the top four in 2023 after adding Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper to the list, and reigning premier Geelong. Even win one of those games, though, and they won’t play another top-eight team until Round 8.

Even if their ‘Gather Round’ game against the Crows does give them a true extra away game, you’d have to back the Blues to get the job done, even if a loss to Adelaide in Adelaide last year did start their late-season car crash.

Put it this way: if the Blues once again miss finals in 2023, they can’t exactly point to a draw stacked against them.

(Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Carlton fans who like watching games on TV

The opposition isn’t the only thing going the Blues’ way for next year: six of their 14 scheduled matches are on Thursday or Friday night. That’s an exceptional run of prime-time fixtures for anyone, let alone the team who, as I’m sure we’ve all been gleefully reminded all our mates who barrack for the Blues since August, missed the finals last year.

They have two other fixtures in marquee slots as well: they’ve jumped into the Good Friday fixture alongside North Melbourne, while for the first time, a ‘King’s Birthday Eve’ match will see them face Essendon on Sunday night.

That’s comfortably more than even Collingwood, who have still done well with three Thursday/Friday night games plus their traditional clashes with Essendon and Melbourne on ANZAC Day and King’s Birthday. Richmond have four alongside ANZAC Day eve against the Demons; while the Bombers have been scrubbed off prime time altogether save for ANZAC Day and Dreamtime at the ‘G, which they’re unlikely to ever be forced to give up.

So if you’re a passionate Blues fan who doesn’t like going along to many games, you’re in luck.

Essendon

Momentum, especially to start a year, is an underrated asset in modern footy. I wonder, for instance, whether Richmond would have built to become such an all-conquering colossus between 2017 and 2020 if they hadn’t started that first year with five consecutive victories that built an unshakeable belief within the team.

Brad Scott’s tenure at the Bombers has the potential to provide an instant sugar rush: their first four games, against Hawthorn, Gold Coast, St Kilda and GWS, are all in Victoria against teams that didn’t make finals in 2022. As an added bonus, their clash with the Saints has rather inexplicably been slated for the MCG, where the Bombers play comfortably more.

The Bombers’ double-up fixtures also include last year’s bottom two in West Coast and North Melbourne, plus another bottom-four team in the Giants; yes, they also get Geelong twice (including once at GMHBA Stadium), but you can’t win ’em all.

The Dons are every chance now to start next year 4-0: for a team that tends to play on emotion and can be irresistible with confidence up, as we saw in late 2021, that’s more than handy.

Newly appointed Essendon coach Brad Scott. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

Brisbane

The Lions have long been crying out for greater exposure in marquee timeslots, and it appears the AFL has finally listened. After six home-and-away games last year on Thursday or Friday night, the Lions have that many again inside their first 14 games alone.

It includes three of their first four games in standalone fixtures, with their two at home against Melbourne and Collingwood genuine blockbusters. Sure, it makes for a slightly tricky fixture, but if the Lions hope to be premiership contenders once again they’ll need to be all but unbeatable at their Gabba fortress.

With double-ups against three bottom-ten sides from 2022 in Gold Coast, Adelaide and St Kilda, plus a pretty cushy ‘Gather Round’ date with North Melbourne (albeit well outside the Adelaide CBD in Mount Barker), you couldn’t really ask for more if you’re a Lions fan.

South Australia

I’m a Victorian, so it’s probably not hard to see why I didn’t and still don’t see why a ‘Gather Round’ concept needs to exist in the AFL. Nevertheless, it’s here, and if I were a South Australian I’d be gassed to have this much footy coming my way.

According to my calculations, a willing fanatic could catch roughly seven and a half games if they were so inclined. Adelaide-Carlton on Thursday night is a no-brainer: then on Friday, take an early night from work and head out to Norwood to catch Fremantle versus Gold Coast, then get the H20 to North side and walk up War Memorial Drive to the Adelaide Oval for Richmond and Sydney.

On Saturday it’s out to Mount Barker for Brisbane and North Melbourne (albeit the ticket allocation has already been exhausted, so I hope you got in early). It’s a decent drive out so you might miss the first half of Essendon and Melbourne back at the Adelaide Oval, but then you won’t have to budge as Port Adelaide take on the Western Bulldogs.

On Sunday you might have to sacrifice heading back to Norwood for GWS-Hawthorn, but not to worry: Geelong-West Coast and Collingwood-St Kilda are both at the Adelaide Oval, so you can catch them both.

Of course, by the time the Saints and Pies play you’ll probably be sick to death of our sport and wondering when the Wallabies are in town next, but it’s theoretically possible to watch that much footy live and in the flesh. Enjoy!

(Photo by Mark Brake/Getty Images)

Losers

Western Bulldogs

I know, I know: ‘just about every single fan feels like their club has been screwed over by the league’. But this is a bit different because the Dogs actually have been screwed over.

Playing Geelong in Geelong is a given, and there’s no use complaining about it anymore (plus Geelong would wipe the floor with the Dogs even if they played that game on Mars).

But it seems incredibly harsh to schedule a team that is already selling two home games to Ballarat (that’s on us, no question) to play Hawthorn down in Tasmania, simultaneously depriving fans of the chance to see their team play and costing an arguable finals contender a chance to play a rare game at the MCG. The Dogs have just two games at the ‘G in 2023 before finals: less than even Fremantle, Port Adelaide and Sydney.

Add to that being stripped of Good Friday for the second time despite actually making finals last year (what chance, pray tell, does that game have of developing some sort of event status if it’s perodically being chopped and changed? No other marquee fixture has that happen), and little wonder us Doggies fans are a little bit peeved at the moment.

I haven’t even got to the tricky fixture, which sees them face Richmond, Geelong and Fremantle twice of last year’s finalists, plus a genuine extra away game for ‘Gather Round’ against Port Adelaide.

For a team already battling to just make the eight next year, it already looks like it’s going to take a heck of an effort just to match 2022’s elimination final exit.

Ken Hinkley

Perhaps the most under-pressure coach in the league, Hinkley and Port Adelaide have been dealt a significantly rougher hand than a side which missed finals last year warrants.

Yet again, they’re hit straight out of the gate with a tough run: four of their first five games are against 2022 finalists, alongside a Showdown where ladder positions don’t matter a bit. A 0-5 start derailed last season before it had any chance to get going, and you can’t discount a repeat in 2023.

They also face two preliminary finalists from last year in Geelong and Collingwood twice, as well as the Bulldogs and Richmond of the top eight. Yowch.

Hinkley’s contract runs out at the end of 2023, and he almost certainly can’t afford to miss the finals for a second straight year. A fixture like this doesn’t help matters.

As a final bugbear, the Power get just two chances to play at the MCG, the locked-in grand final venue. It’s a long-held bugbear of mine that six teams essentially get the advantage of a batch of games at the most important ground in the land, and interstate clubs and smaller Victorians alike get the rough end of the stick there. If Port do end up making it deep into the finals, then they might come to rue this.

(AAP Image/Kelly Barnes)

Sydney

Teams that get walloped in grand finals have a tendency to slide dramatically the year after, and the Swans’ fixture doesn’t help them avoid that.

Four of last year’s finalists are on their list of double-ups – grand final tormentors Geelong, Fremantle, Melbourne and Richmond. With all four mounting reasonable cases for top-four in 2023, and the added burden of needing to play each of them interstate, even going 4-4 would be a pretty reasonable result.

Last year, 16 wins were required to make top four, and even 13 is now more often than not required to make the eight. With that burden, plus the history of grand final shellackings coming before a fall, the Swans might only need to drop four games from their 2016 haul to go from top-four locks and flag contenders to missing September altogether.

People with plans in August

Yes, once again the league has only scheduled games until the end of June. That means each club has nine fixtures with uncertain dates and times – not great news if you’ve got places to be in July or August.

It’s a slightly better solution than the full-on rolling fixture of 2021, that saw multiple fixture reveals throughout the year: but with so many factors to take into account for fans, especially those wishing to travel interstate, it’s an extra worry that simply wasn’t necessary.

It’s not like it’ll help add in blockbuster primetime fixtures, either: we still ended up with the Bulldogs and St Kilda on Friday night in the second fixture batch last year.

Fixture equalists

Yet again, those calling for the fixture to match most other sporting leagues in the world with some kind of equality – the most common solution reducing the home-and-away season to 17 rounds in which each side plays the other but once – won’t get what they want. And they probably never will.

Having said that, though, is it not one of the unique qualities of the AFL that some teams have to do it the hard way? Add to that the simple fact that we just don’t know how the season will pan out. Some clubs will fall away, others will rise unexpectedly. Teams last year might have thought they’d struck gold by getting to play Collingwood twice, while others would have looked at double-ups against Port Adelaide or GWS and despaired.

With 24 rounds next season, the fixture is more lopsided than ever, and no doubt those calls for greater equality will continue for years to come. But don’t expect change to happen anytime soon.