The 2009 Toyota AFL Premiership Season fixture will be released on Friday, October 24 at 11.30am AEDT.
afl.com.au’s comprehensive coverage will include a breakdown of your club’s schedule, reaction and the full fixture - sortable by round, team and venue.
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NO CLUBS will play each other more than once in the opening 10 rounds of the 2009 season, in what the AFL believes will be an improved fixture to be released later this week.
Clubs are running their eyes over the 2009 draft fixture for the final time before the League officially issues next year’s draw on Friday.
The AFL has been working furiously on the fixture for the past month, with officials being forced to wait for the 2008 grand finalists to be decided before being able to get stuck into detailed planning of next season’s draw.
However with Hawthorn and Geelong now locked in for a round one showdown at the MCG, the draw has taken shape.
The Hawks will host the season opener and therefore unfurl their premiership flag before kick starting their title defence, adding even more spice to the blockbuster season opener.
Next year the opening round will coincide with the Australian Formula One Grand Prix in Melbourne – on the weekend of March 27-29 – which the League says will ensure a “different feel” with regards to the scheduling of round one.
One of the men charged with trying to keep all 16 clubs happy, AFL manager of broadcasting legal and business affairs Simon Lethlean said the 2009 fixture was close to completion, with clubs having their last chance to submit any complaints or requests.
“It’s pretty settled at this stage, there’s not a great deal more to do,” Lethlean said.
One aspect of the 2008 fixture that drew criticism from some quarters was the fact that while some clubs – such as ladder leaders the Cats and the Hawks – didn’t meet for the first time until round 17 this year, others faced each other twice in the first nine weeks.
Hawthorn and Melbourne, Adelaide and West Coast, and also Port Adelaide and the Sydney Swans were among clubs to meet twice inside the opening nine rounds.
The AFL is keen to avoid a repeat of similar occurrences in 2009.
“I guess we’ve tightened it up from last year,” Lethlean said.
“We’ve made sure that this year every club has to play each other by round 21, so you won’t see any round 22 clashes where clubs haven’t played each other.
“The restrictions we’ve put around it are you can’t play a club twice in the first 10 rounds, which I think happened a couple of times last year.
“You will find some second match-ups after round 10, but at all times there’ll be a minimum of seven weeks between them.”
For the first time in a long time ANZAC Day will fall on a Saturday next season, and despite Collingwood and Essendon not getting the day all to themselves the AFL has managed to stagger the fixture to ensure the traditional clash gains most prominence.
Lethlean said it was difficult to make every club happy when it came to the fixture but he was confident of a successful outcome.
“It’s really actually quite staggering the amount of things that get taken into consideration, from broadcast obligations and requests, to all 16 club requests, all the venues, state leagues and all that sort of stuff just at a request level,” Lethlean said.
“Then you’ve got … top eight playing the bottom eight a certain number of times, blockbusters that need to be scheduled, match obligations at venues.
“There’s a whole manner of different things that get taken into consideration.”
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The 2009 Toyota AFL Premiership Season fixture will be released on Friday, October 24 at 11.30am AEDT.
afl.com.au’s comprehensive coverage will include a breakdown of your club’s schedule, reaction and the full fixture - sortable by round, team and venue.
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