2025 Fixture

[Otiman]

I don't mind this fixture, this year just showed that early year form doesn't count at the end of the year. If anyone doubts me look at where the eventual premiers sat after round 8.

We can push ourselves early and if we jag a few wins we didn't expect then the run home will give us a good run into finals.

I think we will be playing for the 4 points every week, no calculated honorable losses since we get our draft haul this year.

[Yorkeys]

AFL GHQ should pay the expenses of the families of our round 1 debutantes. Sending us to Adelaide for opening round, oh boy. Players might well watch Gladiator 2 before travelling.

[bigcarl]

No doubt RTB will use this as a spur. Us against the world etc.

So typical of the AFL that they look after a big club such as Carlton. But the Saints, they don’t really matter do they ….

[SaintPav]

Spot the only missing team from the AFL promotional booklet.

Equity mate!



https://resources.afl.com.au/afl/docume ... LowRes.pdf

[SaintPav]

Same from 2024 fixture.

It’s probably just a coincidence.





https://resources.afl.com.au/afl/docume ... -Guide.pdf

[D.B.Cooper]

Melbourne- same amount of wins in 2024, dream draw.

Gee beating Carlton has potentially hurt us in the fixture and draft.

I think we have without doubt been given a very challenging fixture.

Do I care? NO!
If you are going to challenge you have to win anytime, anywhere and under adversity.

A soft draw (um, I mean fixture) can give a false sense of where you are at as a club.

If we make finals with this draw I’d say we are heading in the right direction on field and off.

[Sainter_Dad]

Yeah that Cairns game has been an issue - for some unknown reason we are probably just as well off playing Port in Adelaide..

Cairns is followed by the Bye at least (we should not lose that one)

[Sainter_Dad]

Whingers gotta whinge

Hopefully the super fit elite young athletes can recover from an 80 minute plane ride

Do you ever have something nice to say?

Nope - they also shout into the wind!

Just hang around waiting for Curley to post and then straight in with the emoji's

[Beno88]

Spot the only missing team from the AFL promotional booklet.

Equity mate!



https://resources.afl.com.au/afl/docume ... LowRes.pdf

Dogs not there either.

[Mr Magic]

Spot the only missing team from the AFL promotional booklet.

Equity mate!



https://resources.afl.com.au/afl/docume ... LowRes.pdf

Dogs not there either.

Last one on the list - Western Bulldogs hosting 2 games in Ballarat

[SaintPav]

Spot the only missing team from the AFL promotional booklet.

Equity mate!



https://resources.afl.com.au/afl/docume ... LowRes.pdf

Dogs not there either.

They are represented in Ballarat bottom right.

[SaintPav]

Every team plays the bottom team at least 5 times except one team.

[The_Dud]

Whingers gotta whinge

Hopefully the super fit elite young athletes can recover from an 80 minute plane ride

Do you ever have something nice to say?

Nope - they also shout into the wind!

Just hang around waiting for Curley to post and then straight in with the emoji's

Pot, kettle, black?

But I think by this point we've well and truly established that hypocrisy and yourself go hand-in-hand

I'm one of the few being positive in this thread, and don't think the sky is falling because we're not in the brochure...

[older saint]

8-9 wins at best with a percentage closer to 100 than 85. Will be competitive but early travel puts us in a hole. By round 12 perhaps 4 wins and spent at the bye.

Perhaps they want a 3rd SA team and getting us used to it early on ....hahahaha

[CURLY]

Melbourne- same amount of wins in 2024, dream draw.

Gee beating Carlton has potentially hurt us in the fixture and draft.

I think we have without doubt been given a very challenging fixture.

Do I care? NO!
If you are going to challenge you have to win anytime, anywhere and under adversity.

A soft draw (um, I mean fixture) can give a false sense of where you are at as a club.

If we make finals with this draw I’d say we are heading in the right direction on field and off.

Beating Carlton has nothing to do with the draw. It's manipulated to get the results and revenue they want.

[Brunswicksainter]

Yeah that Cairns game has been an issue - for some unknown reason we are probably just as well off playing Port in Adelaide..

Cairns is followed by the Bye at least (we should not lose that one)

Melbourne got pumped by 100 points in this fixture last year.

[santazzi]

"No doubt RTB will use this as a spur. Us against the world etc. "

Too right Bigcarl. Bring the bubble back!!

[St Dave]

Melbourne- same amount of wins in 2024, dream draw.

Gee beating Carlton has potentially hurt us in the fixture and draft.

I think we have without doubt been given a very challenging fixture.

Do I care? NO!
If you are going to challenge you have to win anytime, anywhere and under adversity.

A soft draw (um, I mean fixture) can give a false sense of where you are at as a club.

If we make finals with this draw I’d say we are heading in the right direction on field and off.

Beating Carlton has nothing to do with the draw. It's manipulated to get the results and revenue they want.

Beating Carlton put us in the middle 6 rather than the bottom 6 so absolutely had an impact on the draw. Bottom 6 means we play 3 other bottom 6 sides twice and is part of the reason we have been seeing big jumps from poor results one year to strong results the next (see Collingwood 2021 to 22, GWS 22 to 23 and Hawks 23 to 24).

[D.B.Cooper]

Melbourne- same amount of wins in 2024, dream draw.

Gee beating Carlton has potentially hurt us in the fixture and draft.

I think we have without doubt been given a very challenging fixture.

Do I care? NO!
If you are going to challenge you have to win anytime, anywhere and under adversity.

A soft draw (um, I mean fixture) can give a false sense of where you are at as a club.

If we make finals with this draw I’d say we are heading in the right direction on field and off.

Beating Carlton has nothing to do with the draw. It's manipulated to get the results and revenue they want.

Beating Carlton put us in the middle 6 rather than the bottom 6 so absolutely had an impact on the draw. Bottom 6 means we play 3 other bottom 6 sides twice and is part of the reason we have been seeing big jumps from poor results one year to strong results the next (see Collingwood 2021 to 22, GWS 22 to 23 and Hawks 23 to 24).

Stop writing logical posts St Dave!

These facts do not align with Curly’s victim mentality and conspiracy theories.

If the AFL aren’t conspiring to keep us down and instructing the umpires to cheat against us, the whole fabric of his AFL knowledge falls to pieces.

[CURLY]

Melbourne- same amount of wins in 2024, dream draw.

Gee beating Carlton has potentially hurt us in the fixture and draft.

I think we have without doubt been given a very challenging fixture.

Do I care? NO!
If you are going to challenge you have to win anytime, anywhere and under adversity.

A soft draw (um, I mean fixture) can give a false sense of where you are at as a club.

If we make finals with this draw I’d say we are heading in the right direction on field and off.

Beating Carlton has nothing to do with the draw. It's manipulated to get the results and revenue they want.

Beating Carlton put us in the middle 6 rather than the bottom 6 so absolutely had an impact on the draw. Bottom 6 means we play 3 other bottom 6 sides twice and is part of the reason we have been seeing big jumps from poor results one year to strong results the next (see Collingwood 2021 to 22, GWS 22 to 23 and Hawks 23 to 24).

Yet Carlton has double ups against Richmond and West Coast and don't go to Geelong or Alice Springs.

I will just check to see if they have three interstate trips in the first five rounds.

[Sanctorum]

I sit in waiting for the usual clowns that announce the draw makes no difference.

That fixture is one set up for a team to attend not compete.

Call me a clown if you must Curly, but it doesn't bother me one bit that St Kilda is considered to have a tough draw next year.

I will be disappointed if the club come out and complains about aspects of the draw, such as 3 games in SA in the first 5 rounds, because sure as hell we don't want coaches and players to be like some supporters on this forum and taking a defeatist attitude into any of those games.

In fact, I fullly expect them to see this as a challenge to roll up their leeves and show that they are determined to play finals, irrespective of the hurdles that are lined up in front of them next year.

Not playing in Tasmania or Queensland, where St Kilda more often than not loses, is a big plus!

[St Dave]

Beating Carlton has nothing to do with the draw. It's manipulated to get the results and revenue they want.

Beating Carlton put us in the middle 6 rather than the bottom 6 so absolutely had an impact on the draw. Bottom 6 means we play 3 other bottom 6 sides twice and is part of the reason we have been seeing big jumps from poor results one year to strong results the next (see Collingwood 2021 to 22, GWS 22 to 23 and Hawks 23 to 24).

Yet Carlton has double ups against Richmond and West Coast and don't go to Geelong or Alice Springs.

I will just check to see if they have three interstate trips in the first five rounds.

Yeah and if we lost to Carlton we would have something like Melbourne's draw which is around the second easiest depending on where you look.

Everyone in the middle 6 (which Carlton is in) plays 2 bottom 6 teams twice, they just got lucky and got two of the better ones. They don't have out finals spots at the start of the year, they still need to win those games and if they are good enough to make the 8 comfortably it won't matter who they play where.

I appreciate that crying poor us and how it has been rigged again help to dull the disappointment if we are struggling part way through the year, but personally I'm not here to see us sneak in to the finals on an easier draw. I want us to earn our spot and be in a position to win when we are playing better teams in September.

And I know you don't care but Fox footy rated our draw 10th easiest. I don't know if you know but an average draw in an 18 team league would be 9.5, so we have about as close to an average draw as you could get.

[SaintPav]

Very inspiring but totally irrelevant.

Need to use a proportional ratio.

Your raw rankings mask the real magnitude of difference as you are ignoring the base rate.

A 21% deviation from the average is significant.

I would love to do business with you someday.

[St Dave]

Very inspiring but totally irrelevant.

Need to use a proportional ratio.

Your raw rankings mask the real magnitude of difference as you are ignoring the base rate.

A 21% deviation from the average is significant.

I would love to do business with you someday.

Lol yeah sure, except we aren't talking about a system with potentially limitless results, we are taking about 18 teams going in to 18 spots.

I would appreciate your report on it if you want to assign each team a difficulty rating and weight for match location and time of day and X, Y and Z to develop a scientifically sound box and whisker plot (or something) to show how far the median difficulty is from the average (I assume that's where you pulled 21% from).

I would also appreciate your version of the draw where every teams arbitrary difficulty rating is balanced within such a narrow band so that no team can really have an issue.

At the end of all that though we will still (according to fox footy) have a better draw than 8 teams and a worse draw than 9 teams, smack in the middle of the comp.

[SinCitySainter]

While I agree that if you want challenge you have to beat anyone, anywhere and anytime and as such the draw should be irrelevant.
However, we are in a position where the club has openly stated that they will be chasing big names next year.
If we start by winning 3 out of the first 10, for example, we can happily kiss goodbye to any thought of landing an LDU or similar.

We will never be given a draw as favorable as Carlton received this year because it is not in the AFL's best interests to do so.
We have to remember that the AFLs main motivation is eyes on the game and subsequently increasing the slice of the sporting pie that AFL gets.
This then allows the AFL to maximize revenue from the game.

AFL is purely a domestic product so has no access bonus paydays like British and Irish Lions tour will bring to Rugby Union next year.
The AFL Finals are the showcase for the game so they want the biggest clubs playing and everyone else to know and accept their place.
NRL is far happier to push equalization as their show pieces are not club games but State of Origin.