{"id":154,"date":"2020-11-19T23:00:11","date_gmt":"2020-11-20T00:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=154"},"modified":"2020-11-20T14:22:53","modified_gmt":"2020-11-20T14:22:53","slug":"afl-considers-radical-fixture-shake-up-for-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=154","title":{"rendered":"AFL considers radical fixture shake-up for 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

The AFL<\/a> is reportedly considering a radical shakeup of the fixtures in 2021, with the schedule not expected to be released until February, with the draw to be confirmed on a month-by-month basis.<\/p>\n

The Age<\/a> reports that club bosses met with the AFL on Thursday to discuss the options for next season, with the governing body briefing the clubs on a number of issues.<\/p>\n

The expectation is that the fixture list won't be revealed until February, and then, only four rounds at a time will be locked in.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the AFL is believed to favour another 'footy frenzy', such as the one this year that saw matches played on 20 consecutive days as the pandemic played havoc with the draw.<\/p>\n

That concept was popular with broadcasters and fans, although it remains to be seen if it receives a favourable reception in more normal times, when fans are not in lockdown.<\/p>\n

\"2020<\/p>\n

The season is expected to start as normal in March, with crowds likely limited to 50 percent of capacity in Victoria. Other states are more likely to host larger crowds, even at capacity, although the recent outbreak in South Australia is a warning that circumstances can change quickly.<\/p>\n

The AFL's decision to reduce the number of interchanges from 90 to 75<\/a> was also discussed, with the clubs upset the move was locked in before the competition committee met on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

AFL Players' Association president, Patrick Dangerfield<\/a>, was blunt when asked by SEN if he was a fan of the change.<\/p>\n

"Not particularly," he said.<\/p>\n

"Even though this season presented us with a reduced number of games, it was also one of the longer seasons we've had, given when we started pre-season, the break in playing and training and then ultimately when the season concluded.<\/p>\n

\"Patrick<\/p>\n

"I think to go into a season next year and reducing interchanges, I'm a bit of a sceptic on it still as I suspect quite a few players will be.<\/p>\n

"But the changes have been made so we're just going to have to live with it as players.<\/p>\n

"It will certainly fatigue players. Whether that's a good thing and it opens up the play remains to be seen, I think.<\/p>\n

"I'm wary of the potential ramifications for injuries given the season we had this year and the accumulative affect that may have given there won't be a huge amount of time off for quite a number of players to then recover to go into a full and normal season compared to what we faced this year.<\/p>\n

"It'll be interesting, I just do have concerns around the health and safety of our players and the last thing we want is an increased number of injuries.<\/p>\n

"There are times where teams don't use their full allocation (of rotations), but at the same time they're there for a reason."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There's likely to be an unprecedented delay in the draw for next season, and things will be very different when it's released.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions\/156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}