{"id":618223,"date":"2026-04-20T01:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T01:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/618223\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T01:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T01:37:11","slug":"the-strange-afl-fixture-decision-that-needs-to-go-according-to-jake-melksham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/618223\/","title":{"rendered":"The &#8216;strange&#8217; AFL fixture decision that &#8216;needs to go&#8217; according to Jake Melksham"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Melbourne\u2019s high-impact forward Jake Melksham has voiced his frustration with Opening Round, saying it was hard for teams to build momentum in the early parts of the year.<\/p>\n<p>The AFL has flagged that the first weekend of the season, which has seen matches largely played outside of Victoria, was now likely to be altered for the 2027 season.<\/p>\n<p>Press PLAY to hear Jake Melksham\u2019s FULL interview on 3AW\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOpening round needs to go, that\u2019s just strange,\u201d Melksham said on 3AW Football.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou don\u2019t need it \u2026 you just want to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Images: Supplied, Getty\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne\u2019s high-impact forward Jake Melksham has voiced his frustration with Opening Round, saying it was hard for teams&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,14676,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-618223","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-football-featured","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618223","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=618223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}