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Sport Nation
Why the AFL should reduce it's mid-season bye round period
SEN • May 24th, 2025 6:12 pm
Adam Simpson has put forward the idea of bringing down the mid-season bye-round period from five rounds to just two.
This comes about as next week will see the start of the mid-season bye rounds. It will mean that four teams each week will get a bye bar Round 13 which will see only two teams have it.
When asked whether he was a fan of this, Simpson made his feelings known very quickly about what he thought of it.
This would see him go on to suggest that the AFL should reintroduce their bye-round strategy from the mid-2000s.
That would mean 16 teams would have a week off (during the week after the King's Birthday long weekend) while two teams which were Sydney and Collingwood play each other in a blockbuster clash in Sydney with those teams having their bye the week after.
“I’m not a fan at all even when I was coaching,” Simpson stated on SEN’s Crunch Time.
“I don’t know when it was, what era it was but when there was one game on the weekend… I think it was Sydney and Collingwood and everyone else had a bye.
“And it sorts of flipped that they (Sydney and Collingwood) would have a week off in the next week.
“It was Sydney (and) Collingwood every time, maybe you could mix that up a little, I’m not sure, make it even for everyone.
“But have a showcase game on. Not this five weeks.
"We’re not going to know what’s going on with this ladder and I know that’s the way it is but doing it over five weeks, it doesn’t feel right.”
Tom Morris noted that the mid-season bye rounds have slowly increased across the years and agreed that it needs to be brought back in.
“In 2019, there were three bye rounds. The same in 2021 and 2022,” Morris noted.
“2023 that was elevated to four bye rounds in the middle of the year. The same in 2024.
“And now they are up to five. So, they have just extended it gradually over the years and I’m with Simmo (Adam Simpson) completely.
“I don’t mind having some bye rounds but having five of them in the season seems we're being short-changed every week.”
