Why Gillon McLachlan decided against a twilight AFL grand final in 2017

AFL boss Gillon McLachlan believes a twilight grand final is on the horizon, but says he was not convinced the competition could pull off the shift away from the traditional time this season.

Gillon McLachlan says he wasn’t convinced the AFL could pull off a move to a twilight grand final in 2017. Picture: Sarah Matray

AFL boss Gillon McLachlan believes a twilight grand final is on the horizon, but says he was not convinced the competition could pull off the shift away from the traditional time this season.

The AFL announced the 2017 grand final would remain a day game, with a start time of 2.30pm, despite heavy speculation that it would be moved to later in the day.

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McLachlan says he could not be convinced that the shift could be executed.

“There’s a view from a lot people around the place that you could have a better event of the best day in sport if you did it, say twilight ... move it back a couple of hours and you could have the game at night and the event, for the 100,000 and then into the millions at home, could be better,” McLachlan said on 3AW this morning.

“But, if you’re going to do that, when people generally prefer to not have change, then you’ve got to execute every part of it right.

“In the end, the team were of the view that we couldn’t put a recommendation to the (AFL) commission to move it because a lot of the detail wasn't hammered home.

“When you’re like that, I don’t want to own a decision where I don’t feel complete conviction about it.”

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Gillon McLachlan says he wasn’t convinced the AFL could pull off a move to a twilight grand final in 2017. Picture: Sarah Matray

McLachlan said change was on the horizon, but it was a delicate balancing act.

“I think the public now want a day grand final, want to keep it like that,” he said

“But, I think the challenge of our roles is to try and mesh up progress with keeping the links ... with tradition.

“But if you’re going to do that, when people generally prefer to not have change, then you’ve got to execute every part of it right.

“People don’t like change ... I think there is a threshold of how much you can change at one time.

“I’m not sure that, maybe next year, the year after or year after that, you go, yeah, I think actually this is going to be incredible, we’ll have a crack.”

Originally published as Why Gillon McLachlan decided against a twilight AFL grand final in 2017