Jon Ralph: AFL risking the most irrelevant match in footy history to close 2025 season

The AFL’s fixture flip has set up the possibility of footy’s greatest home-and-away finish since 1987. JON RALPH writes, it’s more likely we see one of the most irrelevant games of footy ever.

The AFL’s radical fixture flip of 2025 has set up the possibility of footy’s greatest home-and-away finish since the extraordinary events of 1987.

The problem for the AFL is that they will have to rely on Tattslotto-type odds to achieve that epic conclusion.

Relying on Gold Coast and Essendon to both be in finals contention in the last home-and-away contest of the season is like trying to find that mythical pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

You can go searching for it, but you are likely to go home disappointed.

As the AFL looked for the path of least disruption after delaying the Suns-Essendon game until round 24, they did so taking an extreme leap of faith.

The Bombers and Suns will likely play the final game of the 2025 season. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

On Thursday the league switched the Dons-Suns opening round game to round 24 and yet stopped short of officially locking it in for a pre-finals bye clash.

There is a very small possibility that game could be the first contest of round 24 – on a Thursday – before Essendon v Carlton or Port Adelaide v Gold Coast finishes the season.

But Essendon and Gold Coast both fully expect they will play the final game of the home-and-away season on the Wednesday or Thursday of August 28 or 29.

Credit to the AFL for listening to both the clubs who were desperate to preserve mid-season byes to allow players time to deload and get away from the marathon that is the home-and-away season.

The Suns had proposed playing Essendon in round 2 on what is their current bye but it would have required flipping around multiple games featuring other teams.

Gold Coast is glass-half full – imagine if we got to play a stand-alone ‘win-and-in’ contest at People First Stadium to qualify for the first finals series in club history?

Imagine if they peeled off TWO round 24 victories to leap into the finals.

It might not top the 1987 finals, where Melbourne finally qualified for the finals after 23 years and every spot in the finals order could change, but it would be footy’s version of the wildcard weekend.

Essendon haven’t won a final in 20 years. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

The Suns have never made the finals in their history. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

So the mouth-watering prospect of a stand-alone contest between these two sides is enticing until you study the history between these two teams.

And realise that the balance of probability means it would likely be the deadest of dead rubbers.

Essendon and Gold Coast have a recent history of being non-factors when it comes to pre-finals drama.

No one needs reminding Gold Coast have never played finals, never had a final-round ‘win-and-in’ contest, never been ranked higher than 12th entering the last round of the year.

You have to go back to 2017 to find a contest when Essendon had to win the final round of the season to make finals.

Last year they were cooked by round 24, in 2023 they entered their final clash a game and 12.9 percentage points adrift from eighth-placed GWS.

In 2021 they started the final round in eighth place, and with West Coast and Fremantle were only a single game back.

But by the time Essendon played Collingwood on Sunday afternoon, the Eagles had lost the previous day to Brisbane.

The Bombers celebrate a finals-clinching win in 2017. Picture: AAP Image/Joe Castro

And St Kilda’s upset of Fremantle earlier on Sunday meant the Dons had already qualified for finals before their final clash that afternoon.

In 2019 the Dons played finals but were two games inside the eight before their final game, and in 2018 they were a game and 21 percentage points behind Geelong before round 23.

In 2017 this type of stand-alone game would actually have been truly epic.

The Dons entered the final round only two percentage points ahead of West Coast and equal on 11 wins.

They had to beat Fremantle to stay ahead of the Eagles (who beat Adelaide) and did with a nervy 15-point victory under John Worsfold.

The 2016 wooden spooners had made finals in a gasp-inducing victory in the final home-and-away encounter.

So we cross our fingers, endure a season where the ladder’s win-loss tally is out of whack all year and pray for our version of a footy miracle – the Suns and Dons on the march.

If not we get the most irrelevant match in football history – a stand-alone dead rubber – as a bizarre curiosity while we wait for the 2025 finals series.

Originally published as Jon Ralph: AFL risking the most irrelevant match in footy history to close 2025 season