It’s like watching a really good horror film – wonderful and scary and will probably leave you staring slack-jawed at the screen. From July 29, there will be TWENTY consecutive days of football, including 33 games. Freo, West Coast, Hawthorn and Carlton will have a bye in round 10, while the two Sydney teams will get a week off in round 11.
Here’s a rundown of the draw as it has been announced. More analysis will follow shortly!
Round 9
Wednesday, July 29
Western Bulldogs v Richmond, Metricon Stadium, 7.10pm AEST
Thursday, July 30
Carlton v Hawthorn, Optus Stadium, 3.40pm AWST
Melbourne v Port Adelaide, Gabba, 8.10pm AEST
Friday, July 31
Essendon v Brisbane, Metricon Stadium, 7.50pm AEST
Saturday, August 1
North Melbourne v Adelaide, Metricon Stadium, 2.35pm AEST
St Kilda v Sydney, Gabba, 5.10pm AEST
West Coast v Geelong, Optus Stadium, 6.10pm AWST
Sunday, August 2
Gold Coast v Greater Western Sydney, Metricon Stadium, 3.35pm AEST
Fremantle v Collingwood, Optus Stadium, 4.10pm AWST
Round 10
Monday, August 3
Port Adelaide v Western Bulldogs, Adelaide Oval, 6.40pm ACST
Tuesday, August 4
Richmond v Brisbane, Metricon Stadium, 7.10pm AEST
Wednesday, August 5
Geelong v North Melbourne, Gabba, 5.40pm AEST
Adelaide v Melbourne, Adelaide Oval, 7.40pm ACST
Thursday, August 6
Collingwood v Sydney, Gabba, 5.40pm AEST
Gold Coast v St Kilda, Metricon Stadium, 8.10pm AEST
Friday, August 7
Essendon v Greater Western Sydney, Metricon Stadium, 7.50pm AEST
Byes: Fremantle, West Coast, Hawthorn, Carlton
Round 11
Saturday, August 8
Port Adelaide v Richmond, Adelaide Oval, 4.05pm ACST
Brisbane v Western Bulldogs, Gabba, 7.40pm AEST
Sunday, August 9
West Coast v Carlton, Optus Stadium, 1.35pm AWST
North Melbourne v Melbourne, Blundstone Arena*, 6.10pm AEST
Monday, August 10
Geelong v St Kilda, Gabba, 6.10pm AEST
Fremantle v Hawthorn, Optus Stadium, 6.40pm AWST
Tuesday, August 11
Adelaide v Collingwood, Adelaide Oval, 6.40pm ACST
Wednesday, August 12
Gold Coast v Essendon, Metricon Stadium, 7.10pm AEST
Byes: Greater Western Sydney, Sydney
Round 12
Thursday, August 13
Sydney v Greater Western Sydney, Optus Stadium 6.10pm AWST
Friday, August 14
Geelong v Port Adelaide, Gabba, 7.50pm AEST
Saturday, August 15
North Melbourne v Brisbane, Blundstone Arena*, 2.35pm AEST
Melbourne v Collingwood, Gabba, 5.10pm AEST
Fremantle v Carlton, Optus Stadium, 6.10pm AWST
Sunday, August 16
Western Bulldogs v Adelaide, Metricon Stadium, 1.05pm AEST
St Kilda v Essendon, Gabba, 3.35pm AEST
West Coast v Hawthorn, Optus Stadium, 4.10pm AWST
Monday, August 17
Richmond v Gold Coast, Gabba, 7.10pm AEST
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Well 3 of my 6 on field defenders have byes in Round 10. Looking a little risky for me atm
Yeah, i’m the same as you Champ, but imagine having all of
Doc, Sicily, Ryan, Hurn, Hill & Day..
Going to be shit from a Supercoach perspective if you have a lot of Hawks/Dockers/Eagles/Blues players. To make it fair they would surely have to make that round a best of 18.
Reason being that in a normal season we know who has the bye and when and some people like to set their team accordingly. This season however, none of us knew these 4 teams would be put together. Only seems logical and the fairest thing to do. Time shall tell.
Will also have to wait for the rest of the byes after round 12.
You would hope it’s fair but from someone who copped a whack in rd 3 fair doesn’t always come in to play, at least we know these byes are coming!
Right with you Bruce…I missed at least 500 pts r3. Only fair thing is it’s all in, just like r3.
This season you need luck more than anything! I have 7 players out Rd10 ALL on field including 4 in DEF. As someone to plans meticulously around byes and normally shoots up rankings during these rounds, its going to be painful this year. I also coped 5 on field players out Rd3. Whilst I’m having a whinge about this, you can’t get to filthy . These times are tough!
I call it the revenge of the dons/dees. Reckon everyone should toughen up and just deal with it….at least everyone has several weeks warning. Round 3, me and many others didn’t get any warning and I am still recovering. Hard to go best 18 when only 4 teams aren’t playing…reckon three trades in bye rounds might be fairer.
They still haven’t released the rest of byes, so very hard to plan around. Still conflicted as to whether Bailey Smith is one Dog too many. Hmm.
No bye for Essendon or Melbourne. SC HQ’s original ruling assumed that they would play two games in one round. Now that that isn’t the case, I’d expect them to count the scores from all of their games.
In short: stock up on Essendon and Melbourne players!
Can you expand on that Sal , are you suggesting it won’t be best 18 when there are byes or is at that we know they won’t miss a round?
Essendon and Melbourne have each played one game fewer than everyone else; my understanding is that the AFL’s intention is to make up for that lost game during the bye rounds (i.e. by those two teams not having a bye).
Basically, you get an extra game’s worth of output for the same money if you buy Essendon or Melbourne players between now and then.
Ess and Mel had their ( surprise) bye in Rd3. It was treated as a bye round and so was scored as top 18 players.
Ess and Mel will play each other in a future Rd.
No opportunity to get double points. However, the benefit of having or trading Ess/Mel players is that they won’t have another bye. I.e. if you were deciding who to bring in out of Greenwood or Petracca this week then this might swing the decision to Petracca.
But every team will play 17 games. Essendon and Melbourne have only played 6, while everyone else has played 7.
Ess and Mel will play every remaining round. All other teams will miss one for their bye. If the season remains 17 rounds long then that would mean all teams play 16 games and have 1 bye.. For all teams to play each other once then there would need to 18 rounds. 17 playing rounds and 1 bye for every team. I don’t think the AFL have suggested that would happen.
That makes sense, but it does conflict with what Salamander originally said. The original SC decision was that ESS & MEL would play 2 games in 1 week, and only their BEST score for that week would count. Now it seems that there will be no double-up for them, simply spread out due to the byes. So how would SC decide which 2 games count for the double-up?
It all leans towards an advantage for teams with ESS & MEL players.
SC don’t set the match fixture and the AFL have changed things since that happened in Rd 3.
It seems very clear now that Ess and Mel will not play twice in a round. That was before AFL decided to compress Rds9-12 into less than 3 weeks.
So no double points, or get the higher of 2 scores as previously suggested.
Just the usual situation of it being better to have or trade in players who have already had their bye.
Hasn’t that bloke “Old”…… been ranting about that for the last week or so???? LOL Get ess and dees.
Looks like that might be the case with uneven numbers of teams having byes. Welcome Mr Saad this week…great pod !! Still not going to make up for having six dons/dees r3. Reckon SC need to make a call asap.
10 teams to have byes between rounds 13-17. Cash League finals are going to be a nightmare!
Byes during SC finals is a game changer!
Time to save some trades.
Geez… Doggies have Rich (4th), Port (1st), then Bris (2nd). Takes the shine of Smith a little.
This year is the great equaliser
Who ever wins the prize this year should think he/she is a very lucky person
Or very good !!
I was planning on bringing in Sicily this week with his low BE and good scoring, but should I wait after his Rd 10 bye now?
T/u – Bring him in now
T/d – Wait till after the bye
With a BE of 28, he won’t get any cheaper. Still two weeks of no byes. Bring him in now, Andy.
All I read is a shorter wait until lockout ends after the final game as the first game of of the rounds starts the following day!
A lot quicker for rage trading!!
There will probably be a few rage trades that get (accidentally) locked in!
wait if there is a bye round doesn’t there have to be 18 AFL rounds?
So the finals will be rd 15 to 18
You would think so. We will wait on confirmation but that makes sense
Is there a r18 ??
Going to be many injuries and rotations that will throw us all into Kaos.
Safe to say this year isn’t a huge acknowledgement of skill.
So far this season has been just like any other season. Its been normal rounds except for one game (Ess/Melb) and we were even given 5 trades before R2 to fix our teams. We knew right from day 1 that this was going to be a shortened season and that was going to mean some adaption of past strategies to be successful.
The traditional G&R strategy was always going to be hard to make work this year, because with less rounds there was not going to be enough time to sit on Rookies and let them fully fatten before culling. Those who loaded up with too many rookies at the start may be struggling now.
The byes certainly add a twist in the coming weeks, but there is every likelihood Supercoach will go to a best 18 – like they did earlier in the year. And even if they don’t we have had plenty of warning to plan and fix our benches as the AFL has had byes on the agenda for some weeks now.
Any bye round would be best 18, safe to say that Petracca, Oliver
Merrett,Gawn, Ridley should be high on people’s trade lists. Not so much the rookie’s from these teams.
I think even the Sydney, GWS round should be best of 18 personally, try and keep it all the same, maybe allow 3 trades in these round but don’t increase the number of trades people have.
Totally agree. Just curious, why don’t you think people should target the rookies of dees/dons?
Wouldn’t they be more likely to rotate their better players out with no bye and the shorter breaks?
Since your post this morning, Essendon have since mentioned they’d be likely to play 2x Rucks to rotate and provide a FF target. Draper would be likely there.
This is fun!
wow
the pies , 4 games in 13 days
hope grundy doesn’t get rested
You would think maybe Collingwood get their bye in Rd13 after that run. We won’t know that for a few weeks. But if not then wouldn’t be surprised to see Darcy Cameron get a run. He’s just been sitting on my bench waiting. Would be a good consolation if he can increase his price for a future trade.
Tu; Treloar & B. Smith
Td; Ridley & Walters
As long. As SC makes a call before 7.30 tomorrow, we will all know what plans to make.
The other competition has given 3 trades THIS week.?!?!?!
SC HQ has announced that we get an extra trade per round for rounds 9-12, i.e. three trades per round and a new overall total of 34 trades.
Any round involving byes will be best 18 scoring.
Does this mean I can finally purge my team of Dev Smith? Perhaps…
Thanks Chillo.
I’m not familiar with ‘best 18 scoring’. Does it simply mean that regardless of which players you have fielded, so long as you have 18 or more scoring players, you recieve the highest of their scores?
Does it transcend field position?
It only takes into consideration the scores of fielded players, or emergencies that are able to fill the donut of a player who had a bye (ie. A benched MID rookie with an emergency on him would fill in for a only MID player on the field who had a bye)
Your score is calculated from the top 18 scoring players you have on field, including your emergencies where applicable. ie, if you have an on field donut, emergency score can count, otherwise not.
It transcends field position in that it is Top 18 (probably more mids included than forwards) but not in others (you still only have your alloted on field slots).
The concern now is the remaining Byes are going to be in League finals weeks i.e rounds 14-17….assume it goes down to best 18 or even 16 players with two weeks of 4 teams being rested.
Yep, if there are byes in Rd17 then SC grand finals will be decided based on Top 18 scores.
Those extra trades are a god send. If you are playing for league premierships then def save a few for the last 2 rounds!
I don’t agree with those saying that this year is all luck and that planning and strategy doesn’t come into it. Quite the opposite. Of course luck is a huge part, always has and yes more so this year. The traditional formula approach to planning and trading is out the window. Thinking strategically about possible scenarios is more important than ever. I.e. considering which players are more likely to get rested… or which rookies might get more of a run…. or which players will have their bye during SC finals! That is not luck.
I think we will look back at this years SC competition as THE MOST interesting of all time.
I couldn’t agree more!
Can I go against the trend and say that I’m actually loving this season?
(I’ve been flogged with injuries, doughnuts, disastrous rounds, bumping from top 1% to top 23% and back, the whole shebang)
We all need to remember that at the end of the day this is a game we’re talking about.
What’s better than random challenges, sudden changes, change of strategies, plan outside of the box??
I think most of us will look at this season as lots of fun and I’m sure we will all learn and bring something with us from this mad run for the future SC seasons.
And also, extra trades on the way? Yes pleaze!
Very well said
At least there’s no chance of a Grawn bye !!!
Confirmation that there should be 18 rounds and that the last two rounds should be normal rounds without byes (important for SuperCoach finals):
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.theage.com.au/sport/afl/play-the-games-while-we-can-why-the-afl-compressed-the-season-20200722-p55ek6.html
This season is just something else!
I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t pay attention every day from the other side of the globe, I have a life to live, so I’m just gonna try and get as close to full premo as possible and hope for the best.
Paying very little attention to the byes that is, with the exception of maybe getting Merrit
Anyone looked at their available player rds 10/11 ??? I have 17 then 25 !!
At the moment its 20 then 22.
R 10:Doc,Sic,Cripps and Brayshaw
R 11:Lloyd and Whitfield
Revised Thursday / Friday night fixture in round nine
Thursday, July 30
Melbourne v Port Adelaide, Gabba, 7:50pm EST
Friday, July 31
Carlton v Hawthorn, Optus Stadium, 3:40pm WST, 5:40pm EST
Essendon v Brisbane, Metricon Stadium, 8:10pm EST