You don’t often hear people complaining about getting a week off work.
But the AFL pre-finals bye is back in the spotlight, with numbers revealing just how much of an impact it has had on who can win the premiership.
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Last year Brisbane became the second team in nine seasons to win the flag from outside the top four – something that hadn’t happened for almost two decades before the Western Bulldogs’ 2016 run to glory.
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And while the introduction of a week off between the final home and away round and the first week of finals isn’t the only reason September has been less predictable, it is pretty clearly the main reason.
While the initial point of the pre-finals bye was to ensure teams didn’t mass-rest players for dead rubbers, AFL CEO Andrew Dillon effectively conceded earlier this week equalisation is a key driver of the policy.
“It’s really served the game well. It allows the teams who are in the eight to really set themselves,” Dillon said on Monday.
“I’m comfortable with where it is at the moment.
“We’re always looking at the structure of our season – obviously we’ll look at it.
“But … it does open up the final eight to be a true final eight, so any team who has made it, has the opportunity if things go their way, to make it to the last Saturday in September.”
This sparks a philosophical question. What is the point of the AFL finals series?
How much of an impact does the pre-finals bye have on the AFL finals?Source: FOX SPORTS
Is it to reward the most successful team over the much-longer home and away season? Or is it to create greater opportunities for all finalists – so that any team can believe if they make the eight, they can win the flag?
It is clear that the pre-finals bye does the latter, and if that’s the point, then the debate has to be whether that is right and fair.
“That’s not why this change was made – this change was made about the final round of the home and away season, but what’s this done has diluted the advantage of the top four which is hard-won over 24 rounds,” Gerard Whateley said on Fox Footy’s AFL 360 on Monday night.
“What it’s done to the patterns of the finals series is troubling … we play for six months to pick the order, then we give everyone a breather.”
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THE INTERRUPTED PATH TO GLORY
For the first decade and a half of this AFL finals system, the only way to earn a break was to win.
The final round of the home and away season immediately led into the qualifying and elimination finals, with two teams earning a week off and a home preliminary final, and two teams having their seasons ended.
And this had an enormous impact on who won the flag. Between 2000 and 2015, both qualifying final winners made the Grand Final 75% of the time. But since 2016, that has happened just 33% of the time.
Overall, qualifying final winners are 10-8 in their home preliminary finals, a lower win rate than you would expect given they are always the betting favourite.
The average odds for those games were home team $1.49 and away team $2.74, an implied probability of the home team winning 67% of the time. In reality the home team has won 55% of games.
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BUT IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT THE PRELIMS
Finishing in the bottom half of the eight is suddenly less daunting, too.
To an extent, this is policies having their intended effect, with the AFL desperate for greater equalisation.
Seasons like 2025 have shown how close the race can be between the top-four teams and the 5th-to-8th sides – there is no longer such an enormous gap.
That’s obvious in week two of the finals. Between 2000 and 2015, just five teams went out in straight sets, losing both qualifying and semi finals.
But since 2016, it has happened eight times (Hawthorn 2016 and 2018, Brisbane 2019 and 2021, Melbourne 2022 and 2023, Port Adelaide 2023 and GWS 2024).
That means home semi-finalists since 2016 have gone 10-8 – the exact same win rate as home preliminary finalists of 55%.
Five per cent better than a coin flip is an advantage, but a minimal one. And reducing the advantage to this level has had an immense influence on who can win the premiership.
In total between 2000 and 2015, no teams made the Grand Final after finishing outside the top four. In the nine seasons since, it has happened four times (Western Bulldogs 2016 and 2021, GWS 2019 and Brisbane 2025), with the 2016 Dogs and 2015 Lions winning the premiership.
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DOES THE PRE-FINALS BYE ACTUALLY HELP BALANCE THINGS?
There is an argument to be made that the pre-finals bye counteracts problems with the fixture. After all, we know the home and away season isn’t fair, both deliberately and unintentionally.
The fixture is deliberately created to help the worst teams, like 15th-placed Adelaide (who were given the fourth-easiest set of double-up opponents, and got the sixth-easiest) as well as hinder the best teams like premiers Brisbane – who were given and received the hardest set of opponents.
It is also unintentionally imbalanced, like with Geelong this season. After hosting a prelim last year, the Cats were drawn to face three 2024 finalists twice (2nd-placed Port Adelaide, 4th-placed GWS and 5th-placed Brisbane). Sounds reasonable enough.
Except Port Adelaide were much worse this year than they were last year, while fellow Cats double-up opponents Essendon and St Kilda also slid backwards, which is how Geelong ended up with the second-easiest fixture in 2025.
The Cats’ set of double-up games was much easier than GWS’ set of double-ups, despite the fact both teams made the top four last year. It would be fair to suggest the Giants’ tougher fixture contributed to them missing the top four, and Geelong making it.
And so this is where the pre-finals bye is worthwhile for competitive balance reasons; it closes this gap created by the fixture.
Ideally, of course, we would just have a balanced fixture and balanced finals series too. But the former is impractical (since they’re not gonna make everyone play each other twice), so the latter doesn’t happen either.
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Former AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan made the point quite clear in 2022 – that historic aberrations were kinda the point.
“Since we’ve done it (the pre-finals bye), the top-four teams have won every time except once,” he said.
“The fact that a team could win outside the top four, if that’s what is generated, that’s a good thing.
“I know that it’s still better to finish top four than bottom four.
“The only argument I can hear … is maybe the concept of the advantage of being a top-four team is less than what it was.
“But if it means that one team can get up in that period and win, I think it’s a good thing.”
Some clubs agree but others, like Sydney and Brisbane, are known to be against the bye.
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Lions coach Chris Fagan was critical of the bye before his team took advantage of it to win the flag, while this past April, then-Swans CEO Tom Harley called for the bye to be shifted pre-Grand Final.
“We’re certainly advocates for shifting the structure and removing the pre-finals bye,” Harley said.
“If you want to have the best spectacle possible… you get the best players available, playing in the best teams… and by instilling a pre-Grand Final bye you can really create that event.”
“We wouldn’t have to have a remote Brownlow Medallist accept his award, if you’re a non-Victorian team making it through to the grand final, you’ve got 14 days as opposed to seven days to prepare all the logistics.”
“So, I think the opportunities are endless when it comes to a pre-Grand Final bye.”
Somewhat ironically, Harley now works at the AFL as Chief Operating Officer, with ex-Brisbane CEO Greg Swann taking the role as Head of Football Performance.
So if they wanted to scrap or move the bye – and we know they did a few months ago, at least – they probably now have the power to do so.