Opinion The pre-finals bye

[BigVic]

Since 2016, only 2017, 2022 and 2023 has saw both qualifying winners from the first week of the finals advanced to the grand final after a week off

2016: GWS, Geelong (both teams lost prelims)
2017: Adelaide, Richmond (played in Grand final)
2018: Richmond, West Coast Eagles (West Coast advanced to Grand Final, won)
2019: Richmond, Collingwood (Richmond advanced to Grand Final, won)
2020: Brisbane Lions, Port Adelaide (both teams lost prelims)
2021: No pre-finals bye, bye was week before Grand Final
2022: Geelong Cats, Sydney Swans (both advanced to Grand Final
2023: Collingwood, Brisbane Lions (both advanced to Grand Final)
2024: Sydney Swans, Geelong Cats

Geelong played 1 game in 29 days between the QF and yesterday's PF with their QF on the Thursday.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Since 2016, only 2017, 2022 and 2023 has saw both qualifying winners from the first week of the finals advanced to the grand final after a week off

2016: GWS, Geelong (both lost prelims)
2017: Adelaide, Richmond (played in Grand final)
2018: Richmond, West Coast Eagles (West Coast advanced to Grand Final, won)
2019: Richmond, Collingwood (Richmond advanced to Grand Final, won)
2020: Richmond, Port Adelaide
2021: No pre-finals bye, bye was week before Grand Final
2022: Geelong Cats, Sydney Swans (both advanced to Grand Final
2023: Collingwood, Brisbane Lions (both advanced to Grand Final)
2024: Sydney Swans, Geelong Cats

Geelong played 1 game in 29 days between the QF and yesterday's PF with their QF on the Thursday.

What’s going on in 2020?

 

[Shane Heard]

The bye is a good thing.

It’s a good thing for amateur and junior footy finals.

It’s a good thing for the AFL league players to rest up. Because the h&a season is a long and brutal journey of hard knocks and hard running.

 

[RAPPA]

Since 2016, only 2017, 2022 and 2023 has saw both qualifying winners from the first week of the finals advanced to the grand final after a week off

2016: GWS, Geelong (both teams lost prelims)
2017: Adelaide, Richmond (played in Grand final)
2018: Richmond, West Coast Eagles (West Coast advanced to Grand Final, won)
2019: Richmond, Collingwood (Richmond advanced to Grand Final, won)
2020: Brisbane Lions, Port Adelaide (both teams lost prelims)
2021: No pre-finals bye, bye was week before Grand Final
2022: Geelong Cats, Sydney Swans (both advanced to Grand Final
2023: Collingwood, Brisbane Lions (both advanced to Grand Final)
2024: Sydney Swans, Geelong Cats

Geelong played 1 game in 29 days between the QF and yesterday's PF with their QF on the Thursday.

Geelong had a bye in Round 24 and the QF as well.

 

[BigVic]

Also prevents mass resting players in the final rounds of the season as what we saw with Freo in 2015

 

[PenfoldsFan]

Geelong had a bye in Round 24 and the QF as well.

Quite hilarious for a supporter of a club that only made finals due to a win on the road by the club he's hanging shit on, and who gave their elimination final opponant the bye until half time.

 

[Handsuper47]

The bye is a good thing.

It’s a good thing for amateur and junior footy finals.

It’s a good thing for the AFL league players to rest up. Because the h&a season is a long and brutal journey of hard knocks and hard running.

I'm all for the bye, stops teams resting the majority of their players in the last few rounds making them pointless games

 

[TP86]

It's the no.1 argument for the bookmakers having too much power in the game. They couldn't handle one game every 6-7 years where a team rests key players (and has only ever been done by two coaches) and thus kicked up a massive stink.

The suggestion of a 'wildcard weekend' or bye round to fill that gap means mass rotation might return for the final H&A round anyway. But I imagine nobody will have a problem with it then because wildcard weekend won't want to be blamed.

 

[deck]

The bye is a good thing.

It’s a good thing for amateur and junior footy finals.

It’s a good thing for the AFL league players to rest up. Because the h&a season is a long and brutal journey of hard knocks and hard running.

And 1 thing you have missed is there won't be a Thursday night final without the week off.

 

[010203]

Also prevents mass resting players in the final rounds of the season as what we saw with Freo in 2015

One could argue resting players in round 23 didn't do Fremantle any good anyway as they weren't impressive in their qualifying final win against Sydney and were outplayed by Hawthorn in the prelim final.

 

[Shane Heard]

I'm all for the bye, stops teams resting the majority of their players in the last few rounds making them pointless games

Exactly

 

[BigVic]

One could argue resting players in round 23 didn't do Fremantle any good anyway as they weren't impressive in their qualifying final win against Sydney and were outplayed by Hawthorn in the prelim final.

This was the exact reason the AFL bought in the pre-finals bye.

 

[Billy ray]

Perfect opportunity to put a rescheduled GC v Ess game on the Thursday or Friday night.

 

[Nelso]

Perfect opportunity to put a rescheduled GC v Ess game on the Thursday or Friday night.

I agree.

Both teams will have nothing to play for at that time of year as both would have been eliminated from finals contention already.

 

[Clark G]

This was the exact reason the AFL bought in the pre-finals bye.

A Thursday night final in place of Sunday afternoon is also a factor.

 

[Clark G]

I'm all for the bye, stops teams resting the majority of their players in the last few rounds making them pointless games

It doesn’t stop it, at least not completely. Essendon rested several players in the last regular season round in 2019 knowing finals could not be missed even with a loss.

 

[Billy ray]

Sigh

 

[Outtatym]

Scrap it. Boring weekend and kills the excitement heading into finals.
If you're in the position to rest player's the week before you've earnt it.

 

[Hobbes]

The pre-finals bye gets rid of the travesty of a team resting most of their team if they don’t need the last round win.

 

[soafraid]

The bye sucks arse. Who cares if players get rested? Plenty of meaningless games in the back half of the season anyway. Bookies can eat a chode, they make billions a year anyway

 

[Handsuper47]

I'm all for the bye, stops teams resting the majority of their players in the last few rounds making them pointless games

I'm still all for the bye as I was last year, but now I think it should be reserved for teams that finish in the top four because if we're gonna have close seasons again it's time to make the top four seem more special to get.

 

[juss]

Hate the bye. Heaps of momentum is lost and it loses a lot of excitement. I reckon if your team isn't playing finals a lot of those fans check out of the season at this point.

 

[kozi]

Brought to you by the same AFL brains trust that are shit scared of having the mid season byes as 1 weekend of no footy in case people do something else

 

[Kappa]

The season is long and brutal, giving teams a week off to mentally and physically reset before 4 potentially bone crunching is a good idea and will likely result in better games as star players can recover from lingering niggles.

I do agree that it hurts the momentum of the season, the afl should put a few things on this weekend like under 18s champs, AA/brownlow ect

 

[GC2015]

Over 1.8 million people tuned in to Channel 7 to watch the Gold Coast v Essendon game on Wednesday night, in which the 9th placed team surpassed the 8th placed team to book its place in the finals...

Would have thought this, along with how tight the top 9 race was this year, is enough evidence to suggest the AFL should introduce an 8th v 9th wildcard playoff in the pre-finals bye week instead of literally having nothing like we've seen this year and killing all the great momentum we had going into this year's finals.

Just imagine the level of interest and viewership we would have seen if the 8th placed Hawks had hosted the 9th placed Bulldogs at the MCG last night and the winner booked their ticket to Sydney the following week. That would have been so much better than what we got this weekend (nothing).