2015 AFL fixture is the league's peace offering to fans

The future is the past. That is the message with which disgruntled AFL fans had battered the league administration over the past year and in the release of the 2015 fixture, the league has finally conceded ground.

The primacy of weekend afternoons as the marquee football timeslots has been restored, especially in Melbourne, where 47 weekend day games a significant increase from last year’s 34. Sunday night encounters, as popular with the rank and file supporters as the price of mid-strength beer, have disappeared altogether in a crucial concession that fans are not willing to play second fiddle to TV schedules.

Four of the five Thursday night clashes have been placed in consecutive weeks at the mid-point of the season and in another interesting concession to families, Saturday night games will start 20 minutes earlier, at 7:20pm.

Yet another tradition of sorts returns with Carlton and Richmond’s blockbuster (in a crowd sense at least) season opener to take place on the night of Easter Thursday, a move away from the uninspiring match-ups of the previous few seasons. Fans might also rejoice at the chance to gorge themselves on nine games on the opening weekend of the season, rather than hanging on grimly as those fixtures are spread across an interminably drawn-out split round. Good Friday football proponents will have to wait another year, with no game scheduled there for 2015.

Melbourne’s traditional powerhouse clubs have had their wishes granted too, with all of Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon, Richmond, Geelong and Melbourne featuring in Saturday afternoon encounters. Mostly, it’s a schedule in which common sense prevails.

Less happy will be those who lament the AFL invasion of Anzac Day; five games will be crammed into a day, one in which the single iconic fixture between Collingwood and Essendon previously felt like ample afternoon entertainment. That move certainly can’t be explained away entirely as a TV viewership bonanza, because most of the time slots will overlap and then leave a void elsewhere.

This year’s grand finalists, Hawthorn and Sydney, will have to wait until round eight to square off again and it mightn’t be Carey the Crow v Stevens, Archer et al, but there will be some spice in the opening round clash between Collingwood and a Brisbane midfield featuring departed Pie Dayne Beams.

Perhaps the biggest single beneficiaries of next season’s schedule will be Richmond, who play 14 games on their home patch at the MCG. Adelaide’s dizzying travel schedule means they won’t play two consecutive games at home until Round 17, Brisbane’s rejuvenated list has a helpful draw in the first 10 weeks, while Pies fans will relish a five-game streak at the MCG between rounds three and seven. Carlton should also be reasonably happy with their lot.

Teams with tougher paths to negotiate early in the season include Fremantle, Geelong (who’ll do well to win a game in the first month), North Melbourne and Port, the latter whacked with Premiership contenders Fremantle, Sydney, North Melbourne and Hawthorn in the first four weeks.

What the dwindling crowd numbers and supporter discontent showed in the past few seasons is that there was a huge gap between the AFL’s image of itself and that held by its supporters. More than the creeping shadow of rival codes or the need to be something that it’s not, it was the hubris and pig-headedness of the league itself that had chipped away at the game’s gloss. This is an administration starting to get its house in order again and the 2015 fixture is not just an acknowledgment that the league is listening, it’s a statement that they’re prepared to actually respond in a meaningful manner.