THE fixture for the 2026 AFL North Coast senior competition has been finalised and it\u2019s now little more than six weeks until the season begins.<\/p>\n
When the first bounce of the season takes place on April 11, the AFL North Coast will have five clubs fielding teams in the Senior Men\u2019s and Reserves competitions and four clubs playing in the Senior Women\u2019s Grade.<\/p>\n
The first day of matches will see the women\u2019s competition take centre stage while the men and reserves have been given an added week to prepare for their seasons.<\/p>\n
Another early season highlight will be the replay of last year\u2019s Men\u2019s and Women\u2019s Grand Finals between Sawtell Toormina and the Coffs Harbour Breakers when the cross-town rivals meet at Fitzroy Oval in their traditional Anzac Day clash.<\/p>\n
AFL Northern NSW Community Football and Competition Manager Brad Greenshields said the 2026 season promises to be a great one.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe return of the Northern Beaches Blues to Senior Men\u2019s footy this year has the local footy community excited for the season ahead,\u201d Greenshields said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe standard of football played in the AFL North Coast has improved each year, particularly in the women\u2019s competition, and I\u2019ve no doubt it will again in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course a major highlight this year will be the AFL North Coast hosting both men\u2019s and women\u2019s representative football matches in Port Macquarie on July 18.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winter Saturdays will be filled with footy until the Grand Finals which will be part of a big weekend with the big day for the seniors being played at C.ex Coffs International Stadium on August 29 before the juniors play their grand finals at the same venue the next day.<\/p>\n
The fixture for the juniors will be released within a fortnight but a start date of Sunday, April 26 has been locked in for the younger players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE fixture for the 2026 AFL North Coast senior competition has been finalised and it\u2019s now little more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-502163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}