Bye bye byes: Hinkley’s solution to fix the AFL season

Ken Hinkley has hatched a plan that will eliminate the amount of weeks in which AFL clubs have a bye.

As it stands in 2026 there are nine weekends where teams have a bye, being Opening Round, Rounds 2 to 4, and then Rounds 12 to 16 inclusive.

According to Hinkley there is a way to fix these shortcomings, highlighted by two weekends of rivalries in the middle of the season which would cut that five-week bye period down to two.

“I’ve come up with some solutions and not just a problem,” Hinkley said on SEN’s Sportsday.

“It’s Round 2 and we already again don’t have 18 teams playing. That happens nine times for the season. Nine times we have no 18-team rounds.

“If you take out Rounds 12 to 16 where we have the bye rounds come in for five weeks which in itself is ridiculous. We have the three rounds at the start of the year - Opening Round, Round 2, 3 and 4 - and we don’t go back to a nine-game round until Round 5 which is Gather Round.

“Why does this have to be and are we going to continue to have that happening all the time? Is it too hard to fix?"

Hinkley's solution

“Opening Round stays so let’s do it with the eight teams. Then let’s just make Round 1 those eight teams that don’t play (in Opening Round). We stop this argument around who has played and who hasn’t played," Hinkley continued.

“Then the 10 teams who were left behind to play (in Round 1). Once that’s over we’re into Round 2. Then it is nine games until we get up to the byes.

“Play one round of rivalry, of all the Victorian clubs.

“We have Essendon Richmond in Dreamtime at the ‘G, Melbourne v St Kilda in the Bayside Battle, Hawthorn v Geelong which is a great rivalry, Collingwood v Carlton - there’s no bigger, North Melbourne v Bulldogs - the Westgate battle happens, and we play them five nights in a row.

“We play Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday - because they’ve all got the bye the next week.

“Then we get this wonderful opportunity for our interstate teams to go to work. The Showdown, the Derby, the Q-Clash and the Battle of the Bridge. Standalone games in their cities where we get to pump it up, we get massive crowds and we’ll get close to 200,000 people go and watch games.

“60,000 at Optus, 55,000 at Adelaide Oval, 40,000 at the SCG and 40,000 at the Gabba.

“We eliminate two bye weeks at the start, the ladder is accurate from Round 2 onwards, ladder becomes accurate again from Round 14 onwards.

“There’s my Ken Oath, it’s time to fix the breaks in the season.”

Additionally, Garry Lyon outlined some of crazy numbers that have been caused by the fixture imbalance.

“In the first five rounds nine games will be played once and that happened to be last week,” Lyon said on SEN Breakfast.

“The Swans will play tonight and then have 16 days off. They won’t be at the SCG for 33 days. We are told the northern markets are key, they are 2-0 on top of the ladder, we don’t see ya (in Sydney) for 33 days.

“The Giants don’t play at ENGIE for seven weeks and only once in that time in Sydney.

“The Hawks will play tonight and not be seen again until Easter Monday.

“The Blues are in the middle of a 17-day break where there’s heightened attention around Carlton and what they’re going to do.

“What is this about?” It is crazy.”

Tim Watson is not a fan of the stop-start nature to begin the season.

“I hate all this. We should all be starting at the same time,” he said.

“I know there’s going to be a bye at different stages, and I appreciate that, but I don’t like all these abbreviated starts.

“Let’s hope Swanny (Greg Swann) and Tom Harley bring a bit of common sense to it for next year when they sit down and do the fixture.”