The fix-ture is in: Why handicapping teams flies in the face of AFL’s integrity

Carlton fans have every reason to be buoyant about their team’s prospects in 2025. Unravelled by injury this year, the Blues need only to avoid another soft tissue pestilence and improve some defensive foibles to reach the top four.

And there’s another factor in their favour, as we discovered on Thursday when the fixture was released: They’ve been handed a rails run, in terms of the teams they play twice and also in the opening six or seven rounds.

Carlton coach Michael Voss has every reason to smile at his team’s fixture for 2025.Credit: AFL Photos

The Blues begin the season against the 2024 wooden spooners, Richmond, averting the unpleasant experience of a game against the Lions, Giants or Swans on the road in the expansion-oriented “opening round” (unlike Geelong, Collingwood and Hawthorn; Essendon have been sent to face the Suns).

While they cop Hawthorn, the Bulldogs and Collingwood in the following three games, there’s the security blanket of having games against West Coast and North Melbourne – 16th and 17th in 2024 and unlikely to climb out of the bottom five next year – to follow that treble of tougher games.

Carlton, despite making finals last year and reaching the preliminary final in 2023, have been scheduled to meet North and the Eagles twice next year, having met North, and Richmond (who did fall further than budgeted last year) twice in 2024. Their double-ups from 2024 finalists for 2025 are Hawthorn and Port Adelaide. It did not shock anyone to see that they were allocated home-and-away games versus Collingwood and Essendon from the middle third of the ladder.

Compare Carlton’s lot to that of the Brisbane Lions, who twice play three of the home-and-away top six from 2024 (Sydney, Geelong and the Bulldogs). The Suns, who aspire to finals, are their sole bottom-six two-time opponent.

AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon before this year’s grand final between the Swans and the Lions.Credit: Getty Images

It is customary to say, at the release of the fixture, that particular teams have “tough fixtures” or “have fared well”, which bespeaks the reality that the AFL fixture – it ceased to be a “draw” long ago – can influence the fate of clubs on the field.

Much of the public seems to accept that the premiers have a harder road than Richmond or North, but this philosophy of handicapping teams, based on ladder position, flies completely in the face of competition integrity.

Even with the handicapping system, huge anomalies exist.

The AFL has a salary cap, the draft, a soft cap and variable funding to ensure a level playing field. The fixture should not be another lever for equalisation. The premiership race should be run at even weights, like the Derby – not weighted in the manner of the Melbourne Cup.

Further, the fixturing for commercial gains – crowds and ratings – has gone too far. If the league is serious about “integrity,” then the fixture ought to reflect a truly run race, in which every team – from the first to the 18th – has a close to equal chance.

This is decidedly not the case now, and the blame lies partly with the clubs themselves.

The clubs tend to judge their fixtures by financial/commercial metrics. A hard draw that puts a club behind the eight-ball on the field can be a bonanza at the turnstiles or in the measure of eyeballs on screens.

Collingwood, as usual, fared nicely in terms of box-office appeal of their fixture, which is replete with marquee matches, Thursday and Friday nights and special occasions – including the requests of rival clubs.

But if the commercial department has much to spruik, the fixture is not kind to Craig McRae, whose team plays all of its first six games against finalists and has double-ups against Melbourne and Adelaide, both teams which aspire to play finals next year (Simon Goodwin and Matthew Nicks will probably lose their jobs if they don’t).

The Demons have a fixture that improves their prospects of finals – ranked by the AFL’s website as the 17th hardest. The Demons, too, have West Coast and North twice and, while the Kangaroos will surely improve, I’d be surprised if they won more than seven or eight games.

To be clear, the Lions weren’t helped at all by a handy fixture in 2024 and neither were Collingwood in 2023 or Geelong in 2022 – those teams were the best in those particular seasons.

But teams can gain momentum from kinder fixturing, which affords them the opportunity to rest older or injured players.

The fixture is less influential than injuries, of course. Carlton’s good fortune with the fixture last year was utterly voided by the soft tissue epidemic. I’m well aware, too, that what appears to be a friendly fixture can be less so when a team such as Hawthorn unexpectedly vaults up the ladder.

That the Hawks have a harder road next year – ranked fourth-hardest by Fox Footy – underscores the AFL’s flawed fixture model. In 2024, they had Richmond and North twice; this year, their bottom six doubles are the Crows and Melbourne.

Lest we forget Richmond were 13th in 2016 and won the premiership the next year, while Collingwood were 13th in 2017 and then went within a Dom Sheed drop punt of winning the 2018 flag; both sides were handed “bottom six” schedules in the relevant seasons.

One obvious improvement – it cannot be called a solution, given all the compromises – would be to discard the handicapping divisions of teams 1-6, 7-12 and 13-18.

If fairness is a genuine priority, then the 23-match season offers an opportunity to level out some inequities.

The AFL could divide teams into six groups of three, instead of three groups of six, with each team drawn to play twice against one team in every sixth of the (previous year’s) ladder.

For example, Brisbane would play one of Richmond, North or West Coast twice, and so would everyone else. If the Lions played Sydney (second) twice, then they wouldn’t get another game against Geelong.

Carlton could play the Eagles twice, but not North.

This might be too difficult to implement, considering the derbies, showdowns, five-day breaks and so forth. But something along these lines ought to be contemplated.

The AFL competition isn’t the WWE, with storylines contrived and match-ups scripted between heels and heroes.

But, even if the clubs don’t care and are more dollar-driven, the fixture should be re-oriented towards equal opportunity once the ball is bounced.

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