The AFL fixture is like a lottery. Here are the biggest winners (and losers)

The new fixture arrived and the player who has played more games than anyone else looked it up and down. “We’re playing where? That must be a mistake, it says here that we’re playing in Ballarat and Darwin.”

OK, I can’t be sure Scott Pendlebury said that, but he might have. If Pendlebury was to join his new Suns teammates on the field for every game next year (long odds for a bloke who’ll be 39 by round one), he will play at more venues (13) in his first year at the Gold Coast than he did in 20 years at Collingwood (11).

Pendlebury could this season play home-and-away games in Geelong, Ballarat, Darwin, Hobart and the Barossa for his first time ever. He is not unique among AFL players in not having played in the Barossa, though few other players also have a wine in their name. If that is not confronting enough for him, in 2027 the Suns only play at the MCG – Pendlebury’s home away from home where he has played more games than any other player – once.

Next year’s riddle, sorry fixture, is a collector’s item for poindexters. It is the last attempt at managing 18 clubs playing 23 games. So, try as they might – and they might have tried – to even things out, things will get wonkier once Tasmania comes in.

This year’s riddle has ventured forth into Sunday night games – a timeslot that has not previously been much loved but is appealing for allowing rare, late, convivial starts in Adelaide and WA. And if you are into bingeing footy, not having overlapping games on Sundays is welcome even if it means the first game starts at 12.30, or just after the last crumbs of your smashed avocado have been wiped away.

The Swans return to Melbourne in round two for a twilight game and in round five for a night game. Their choice of accommodation will be interesting.

Mercifully, the AFL has dispensed with the unloved “Opening Round”, despite the earnest insistence for years that it was a “no-brainer” for the cash it brought the game. It means fewer byes at the start of the season and, in fact, none for the first 10 rounds. Good. Now go further and get rid of the rest of them in 2028, except for the weekly one caused by the 19th team.

Fixtures ceased being fair once this stopped being a 12 team competition. So there are quirks, like Collingwood never travelling like anyone else because every smaller team wants to play them as a home team and pocket the extra cash. The fixture tries to satisfy two competing equalising aims – fairness on the field for your choice of opponent and how often you travel, and fairness in the gate receipts. They are not the same thing.

Another quirk: The Brisbane Lions and Melbourne do not play one another until the last round of the season. In other words, six teams will have had to play the three-peat reigning premiers twice before the Demons play them a first time. Sounds fair.

It illustrates how the AFL fixture arrives like lottery tickets: It might be good, but probably won’t be, and we won’t really know until later.

Bruce Springsteen wrote in his 1982 classic Atlantic City, “down here it’s just winners and losers, and don’t get caught on the wrong side of that line”. The thing about the fixture in October is you don’t yet know where that line is.

Which teams you play twice based on last year’s finish is a reasonable starting point, but doesn’t allow for how much travel you do, how many five-day breaks you have, or as importantly, how many back-to-back six-day breaks you get. It doesn’t cater for when you play teams, or the impact of momentum in-season from banking early wins against sides you can comfortably predict to be down the bottom (like Essendon, Richmond and Port). So, for instance, Gold Coast have a tough draw, but they start the year with West Coast, Richmond, North and GWS. Most clubs would like that.

You have to consider the transformative effects between seasons of change at clubs, so what you expect out of them from where they finished last year is different to what you think of them next year. Ben King and Zach Merrett make Hawthorn even better, Zak Butters leaving makes Port worse and makes the Bulldogs’ midfield the best in the league. And they get Sam Darcy back.

At Collingwood, Lachie Neale and Jesse Hogan coming in and Darcy Moore coming back all make the Pies look better. And what of the impact of Nick Blakey at the Roos?

When ranking the difficulty of a draw, is it fair to take travel into account for a team that sold their games to other venues or states?

Even allowing for all this, I would argue Hawthorn have the hardest draw, playing Fremantle, Geelong, Sydney and the Butters-injected Dogs twice each, as well as having two five-day breaks. Of course the Lions’ draw is probably just as tough, but so it should be – they have won three in a row. The difficulty of the Dockers’ draw is secondary to the question of when – if at all – “Wharfie Time” returns.

St Kilda, a side that again missed the finals, even the expanded finals, have to face the Lions and Geelong twice. Then they get Collingwood and the Dogs twice, and they both finished above them and should be much better because of the additions mentioned above. That’s tough on the Saints, who have such a poser of a first month with Collingwood, the Dogs, Melbourne and Geelong that it would be unsurprising if they were winless going into round five.

GWS, I think, are with Geelong then Gold Coast and Adelaide for middle-bracket difficulty. Given where GWS and Gold Coast finished last year, and the players they lost – Toby Greene, Hogan and King – that is harsh to have to keep company with finalists for draw difficulty.

The Cats will probably lose money but win a game playing Carlton at home. This is one of the most intriguing games of the year. The Cats have long wanted the big teams to come down the highway, but not always have the fans filled Kardinia Park (GMHBA Stadium). If they lose potentially an extra 30,000 people who’d have gone to the MCG under the Josh Fraser resurgent Blues, are they happy with that? Is the AFL?

Melbourne have a good draw, playing only one of last year’s preliminary finalists – Sydney – twice. If you were going to get one of the preliminary finalists twice next year, Sydney would be the one you’d want – no Blakey, and Callum Mills has a long-term injury. They don’t play Essendon or Richmond twice, but they do play Port twice and, right now, you’d take that.

The Dogs, meanwhile, have two five-day beaks, but of the good sides from this year they get twice – Adelaide, Hawthorn and Melbourne – you’d be happy with copping the Crows and getting only one of the prelim finalists. All signs are good at the Dogs.

Richmond have the softest draw, but so they should – they’ve been terrible for a while now. They play only Adelaide twice of the teams who were the last six left in finals last year, and they play twice against three of the others who joined them in the bottom five. This is a good and bad thing for Adem Yze in a crossroads season: There is no alibi from the fixture.

In footy, it’s about winners and losers. Just don’t get caught on the wrong side of that line.

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