AFL revisits Origin footy
The AFL will return to the vexing question of an annual showcase game when it makes significant changes to next year’s fixture.
Rather than have a pre-season final, the league plans to introduce some sort of representative match before the start of the regular season.
It will cut the length of the pre-season so each team can have two byes, rather than the current one weekend off during the home-and-away fixture.
While State of Origin is a rugby league staple, the concept died in the AFL more than a decade ago because of a lack of support from the clubs.
The league’s last try was a one-off Victoria v Dream Team match in 2008.
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AFL football operations manager Mark Evans has floated several ideas.
“There are lots of things we could look at to maybe invigorate that kind of thing,” he told 3AW.
“I’d love to see that our All-Australian side could actually pull on the same jumper.
“That would be a terrific concept.
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“It could be Victoria v South Australia – we haven’t ruled that out.
“But it’s a fresh chance to have a look at (it), to see whether there’s something else that can take that spot of interest at the end of the pre-season.”
Evans said the indigenous all-stars concept, which will be used for the upcoming series against Ireland, was another possible option.
The revised season structure will be:
* The current 22 rounds, but now over 25 weeks, with two byes.
* The pre-season is shortened to two games per club and then the representative game weekend.
* Next year’s regular season opens with a split round on the weekends of March 14-16 and March 21-23.
* The introduction of a more formal system to work out who each team plays twice (there are five return matches per team in a 22-round season).
* Under the “weighting” system, the clubs will be grouped according to where they finish – 1-6, 7-12 and 13-18 – and this will help decide the return matches for the following season.
* The current top eight and finals systems will continue.
