The footy finals bye is a momentum killer – it’s time to boot it

It is now an Australian rite of spring. The Australian Football League’s season gallops along, building momentum. Experts analyse all possible outcomes, focusing on a crucial question about contenders: “How will their game stack up in September?”

Then it IS September. And everything stops.

Welcome to Limboland. The pre-finals bye. The eight teams in the running for this year’s flag have extended time off. Hostilities are suspended until next Thursday evening. All this weekend, with the sweet smell of jasmine in the air, players and supporters must find different ways to kill time.

The MCG should be heaving this weekend.Credit: Joe Armao

What to do? Well, gardens need work after winter: weeding, fertilising, tilling the soil – the horticultural equivalent of AFL list-management. There are movies to be seen. Mission: Impossible is relevant for anyone connected with clubs on the lower rungs of the top eight. The good news is that this will be a stress-free weekend. Nobody loses.

Correction: none of the AFL men’s teams will lose. The eighth season of the AFL women’s competition is getting under way. Nine games will be played over three days while the men fix their hair and nails. AFLW players will enjoy some clear air before being overshadowed for the remainder of September.

Assuming, of course, that people haven’t lost interest. Sports fans are fickle. Easily distracted. The Matildas recently attracted more headlines than Magpies. Sam Kerr’s calf was discussed more than Nick Daicos’ knee. Over this AFL-free weekend, people may start watching darts. Or rugby league.

The AFL’s bye has been a STOP sign on seasons since 2016, when the Western Bulldogs came from nowhere to win. Which means the Doggies should be fans of the bye, except that this season the pups hit “Pause” a few weeks early and missed finals altogether.

Collingwood coach Craig McCrae would prefer his boys weren’t waiting so long to play. But the AFL sells the bye as a reset. A chance for injured stars – cue Nick Daicos knee update – to recover and participate. A chance for AFLW players to have their moment in the spotlight. A chance to debate the composition of this year’s All-Australian team, which will never play a game.

Outgoing AFL chief executive Gil McLachlan loves the bye, saying recently: “We have the fittest teams available; we’ve got a great build up.” He reckons it’s good for TV ratings, good for crowds, good for the standard of the finals, good for the integrity of the competition.

He would probably forward any anti-bye mail to St Kilda coach Ross Lyon. When leading Fremantle in 2013, Lyon rested star players in the final round after working out that a win or loss wouldn’t change the Dockers’ ladder position. Brad Scott, then with North Melbourne, followed the same script in 2015. Both felt vindicated when they won their first finals. But the AFL decided this made a mockery of the competition and was contrary to the “spirit of the game”.

Hence the bye, which has always felt like an over-reaction. Instead of a few players being rested, everyone, including fans and their TV remotes, must endure a period of enforced idleness. It’s a momentum-killer. Also unfair to top teams, which used to be rewarded with a week off if they won their first final. Now, all contenders get a break.

Another problem: too much leisure time. After this hiatus, winners of the two qualifying finals get another week off. Meaning they play one game in three weeks. Match strategies can be forgotten in that time. Joints rust. In 2020, both Port Adelaide and Brisbane won their first finals after the bye and then bombed out a fortnight later.

An alternative is the idea of delaying the bye until after preliminary finals. This happened in 2021, when COVID-19 restrictions meant no finals in Melbourne. The Demons and Dogs got a week off before the grand final, played in Perth. Time for injuries to heal and pre-granny hype to be dialled up to 11. It would also mean a player concussed in a preliminary final would have time to recover before The Big One.

Football, like everything else, is constantly changing. The present finals system has been in place since 2000. It replaced a different final-eight concept. Before then there was a final six (1991-93), which came after the final five (1972-1990). And guess what? The final five system gave the top team, and only the top team, a bye. It worked for Carlton in ’72, but not Collingwood the following season.

You’re never going to please everyone. But by backing this bye the AFL is pleasing itself. Leaving players and fans contemplating lawnmowers and cinema listings. The AFL has disrupted the flow of a season, which should run as smoothly as a mighty river to the sea. It’s time to boot the bye.

Alan Attwood reported on his first grand final in 1983. There were no byes then.

The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.