Round 24 is not the last weekend of the season any more. For the first time since 2000 the AFL has changed the shape of September, and the new Wildcard Round is played on the weekend that used to be the pre-finals bye.
Ten clubs now make the finals. Five weeks, not four. And the club that finishes sixth has just been handed something the club that finishes seventh would give a lot for: a week off.
What actually happens
The teams finishing seventh to tenth play off across one weekend. Seventh hosts tenth. Eighth hosts ninth. Winners go through to the finals proper. Losers are finished.
The top six do not play at all. They watch, they rest, and they enter the qualifying and elimination finals a week fresher than whoever comes through.
The re-seed nobody has thought through yet
Here is the wrinkle that will decide somebody’s season. The two Wildcard winners are not simply plugged into seventh and eighth based on who they beat. They are re-seeded on ladder position — a rankings system the AFL says it has not used since 1999.
The AFL’s wording: “fifth will play the lowest-ranked Wildcard winner and sixth will play the highest-ranked Wildcard winner.” So fifth and sixth genuinely do not know who they are playing until both Wildcard games are done. If tenth pulls off an upset, tenth is the lowest-ranked survivor and travels to fifth.
Why this changes how Round 24 is played
In the old format, the fight at the bottom of the eight was about being in or out. Now it is about which door you come through, and the gap between them is enormous.
Finish sixth and you need three wins to lift the cup. Finish seventh or eighth and you need five straight, though at least you host your Wildcard game — AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon confirmed “all teams who finish in the top eight of ten will host a home final.” Finish ninth or tenth and you need five straight away from home. Nobody has ever done that.
Who it applies to
Brisbane, Hawthorn and Melbourne are level on 60 points with Geelong and Adelaide two wins back on 56 — all five are playing for the safety of the top six. Collingwood sit eighth on 52, the Western Bulldogs ninth on 50, Carlton tenth on 46.
Two of those bottom four will be gone by this time next fortnight. The other two get a September nobody in their position would have had last year.
