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Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
It's Stuart Waitley. Thanks for listening to the podcast. In this episode, we debated the concepts for the future AFL structure, our leadership portfolio with Luke Hodge, Carlton Vice-Captain Jacob Wietering, Sam Edmund with the latest footy news, Simon Hill at the World Cup, Across the Divide with Andrew Voss and Bharat Sundaresan. You can get in touch at any time. Waitley at sen.com.au.
Thanks for listening. Enjoy. Tuesday morning, this is your town. This is your station. This is Waitley. Good morning. Let's run the exercise this morning and try not to start with no. The AFL season will change in 2026 with the introduction of the 19th team. 2028 with the introduction of the 19th team. Rather than fear that change, let's embrace it and let's help shape it.
Let's use a bit of imagination rather than the natural flinch to conservatism. I would say across our nine years together, I've had a minimum 500 blueprints emailed in for revised fixtures and structures to the season, the most recent of which came last night from Andrew. We're trying to be Ken McIntyre here and choose the best system for the future of the AFL.
Four concepts were open for debate yesterday at the CEO's conference, and they're being relayed to you, the football public. Option one is the least inspiring. 22 games across 24 weeks with four double ups. The competition would be fine, but it would be an opportunity lost. Remember the heritage of the 22-game season? 12 teams would play all opposition home and away. It was perfect.
It was the perfect balance for a suburban competition. Now 22 games makes zero sense for a 19-team national comp. Option two puts some thought into equity in a fundamentally unequitable fixture. 24 regular season games across 28 weeks with a five-week final series. Six double-up games with a mechanism to determine who those opponents are rather than handpicking.
So put a formula in place the way the NFL does, for instance, where each position has a specific draw attached to it. There are two neutral games, one being Gather Round and another as yet undetermined and a slight shortening of the game window to accommodate the additional games. So the three hour broadcast window as it currently is would be two and a half hours.
It would be a nip and tuck to the timing of the games. Option two is superior to option one as it actually attempts to address some of the inherent fixes in the fixture. Option three is where it gets really interesting. Play all teams once, plus rivalry round and gather round, which gives you the first 20. And then it's off to a group stage.
The top 16 are drawn into four groups and play three more games. Now, either this is evenly split or the top eight are already qualified for finals and jockey for position in their two groups, while the next eight jockey for the two remaining wildcard tickets.
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Chapter 2: How will the introduction of a 19th team impact the AFL structure?
Then we hit the eight-week final series. The bottom three play among themselves. There's an elegance to this, a three-week runoff to the five-week final series. The risk would be repetition, but the best against the best for more games works. And option four is for the radicals. We play the perfectly structured Premiership season for the modern era.
18 rivals once, then gather round and rivalry rounds, and onto a five-week final series. This, for me, is nirvana. That's as good a fixture as we can get for the future of the AFL season. That's my clear preference. But to get that... The footprint of the season has to be retained, and that requires the idea of an in-season tournament.
A three-week carve-out, 19 AFL teams plus the best of a state league team. So there's a bit of know-your-history at play here. This sort of thing has happened before. Imagine the showcasing of the state league players and the market that that would create. Each team plays three games. The winner of each pool goes into a semifinal and then on to a grand final.
So the winner and the runner-up play five games. Can a tournament create its own cultural footprint and be a sought-after prize? We used to be able to do this. Could it be reinvented for the future? I suspect most won't have the imagination for it, but the first part is a much better premiership season than any of the other models. So those are our four.
The first canvassing of opinions suggested that option two or option three will be our future. I have a leaning toward three, but I'd love it if we had the collective imagination for four. So try not to resist and just go for no as a starting point. See if we can find the opportunity and the excitement. Look to the excitement of what it could be as we drive the discussion forward.
It's a moment where we get to choose the competition of the future. And between us all, we need to choose wisely. The 40-weeks temper text is 0433 98 11 16. The difference is temper. And we will take some calls as the morning goes.
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Chapter 3: What are the proposed concepts for the future AFL season?
The Belgravia Apparel open line 1300 736 736. Belgravia Apparel delivers elite football teamwear solutions. Josh Fraser sat with us on 360 last night. Here's what I see. He looks like a coach. He sounds like a coach. And he coaches like a coach. He might not be the finished product, but he's a coach to the studs of his boots.
There are no conclusions after five games, only one inescapable reality. There can be no process at Carlton without Josh Fraser, not if it wants the best coach for the future. All involved will carefully choose their moment, but Fraser must be among the shortlisted candidates. He's earned that right already. And what he's discovered is this is a job worth fighting for.
I can only assume that you get to a stage where you have a chance to reflect on all your experiences. And I'm in a position now where I've got a great deal of belief in what I can do as a coach, but I know I'm not the finished product. And again, this opportunity has given me a chance to continue to grow.
I don't know exactly when you know you're ready or when you're not, but personally, I haven't lifted my eyes too much to consider what that might look like for me, other than staying really present to this moment and helping our footy club continue to get better and make sure that at the end of my opportunity here as interim coach, our footy club's better placed.
Is this Carlton job a job worth fighting for? I think any job would be a job worth fighting for. And this one in particular, given the size of the Carlton Football Club and now I've felt this already, the power and support that we have as a club. And I think it'd be an exciting opportunity for whoever's ready to go through a process and earn that job.
Josh Fraser with us on 360 last night. Our leadership portfolio is our starting point every Tuesday, and then we'll get to your thoughts. This is probably the best way to summarise what I knew would come. Anthony started with mid-season tournament, F off. Good on you, Anthony. Thanks for leading us all day. Hello to you, Hodgie. Morning, Gerard.
Whenever something new gets thrown up, I think that's the mindset of a lot of people because it's the fear of the unknown and they want change, but they don't want to change it too much. I think that's the common mindset for anyone out there until they actually get it explained to them very clearly. I guess for me, I scrapped option one straight away.
As soon as I saw there was no Gather Round, I was like, no, it's out for me because I love Gather Round. I think we're taking the kids over there again next year. So that was the clear out for myself. I would like a little bit more explanation or a bit more understanding on option three. When it gets into your four different groups, top 16 gets split.
I'd like to look at that a little bit more because that sort of raises, that's sort of, you push into your overseas markets and you sort of say you have different categories and I'd want to know more about who could jump up if someone's had that. So you look at Sydney last year, And they had a big run towards the end. They had a lot of injuries early on.
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Chapter 4: How does the debate around in-season tournaments unfold?
And Rioli played on because he had someone and kicked it to a person who was by himself. And that next person had a skill error. But it showed me there that he's passionate and he wants to cover all areas. He has high expectation for his teammates to live up to what he sets for himself, which I really liked.
I've also seen his frustrations coming out of the umpire, which I've been in that situation. That gets you nowhere. It's not the same as what Sisley has been, and he got penalised for that. But I'm seeing this polite, nice guy come outside himself to try and set this team up. And he's shown to him and...
and the rest of the people out there that he cares so much about living up to the expectations of everyone around him and themselves. And you better give me the full James Cicely. I think Cic has to almost... He's clearly frustrated. But this was early in the game. So he gave away a 50-metre penalty. Long went there as a negating fault.
So Sis, ever since Voss did it and got into his face and then he had it, Kalachi did it to him and then we had against the Doggies and they went and spent some time and physically got into him. Long wasn't physically getting stuck into him. He was just getting the ball. So he ended up kicking four for the game. Early on, James was that frustrated.
I think he might have swore three or four times because the umpire, as he blew 50 and come back and said, James, that's three times. So clearly either warn him a couple of times or he let him go, but his frustration went too much.
I think James has to set to himself that he's got to commit that there's no more undisciplined free kicks or there's no more undisciplined swearing at umpires or 50 metre penalties that he can control. Sometimes in his act of nature where he plays on the line and... If there's a contest he may cross the line, no problems at all because that's what you want from a leader in the halfback line.
But he's almost got to commit to himself and say, look, I'm not going to be undisciplined because I've got to set the tone for everyone else around me. Because if you let this go and think you're just going to stop it in finals, it won't. Because trust me, I've been there, I've crossed the line multiple times and I've said things to umpires which penalised us as a group.
You've got to start now because once it gets to September and the umpires are on edge and the pressure's on and you cross the line two or three times, you can't just pull it back because that's how... That's how your mind works and that's how you've built it up and you've taught it to be out in the footy field.
So I think that's just a little commitment that he has to bring to himself week in, week out, just so he doesn't penalise himself later on. I still want to see all the other stuff. I still want to see he can give lip to opponents because that's how he plays his best and he can be physical. But it's the undisciplined stuff that he just needs to pull up on just so he doesn't disappoint his team.
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Chapter 5: What proposals are currently in front of the AFL for fixture changes?
Um, and only one of those teams qualify.
Now, with that structure, each club would play four games and they'd all get one bye during that period as well.
So I admire all of this work, Rob. I've seen so many ā people put so much thought into it. We actually do have four proposals in front of us now. It doesn't necessarily mean they're the best of everything, but we do have four proposals from the AFL to conceptualise and debate. So we haven't done the throw everything at the wall ā a lot of work's been done in the background to give us four.
So while we can, and I'm sure Duane will have so meant that people have great ideas around the fixture, but we do have four in front of us to choose from and to refine. And I think if we, if we try to debate those rather than every other idea, which have enormous merit.
And as I say, I admire all the work that's gone into, I must've seen 500 in my time here that have been emailed through and they, they all contain so much, inspiration from Ken McIntyre back in the day. Here's Nathan in the newsroom for FIFA World Cup meal at Macca's. Waitley on SEN. Our Carlton chats for Hyundai. Enjoy great deals at Hyundai EFIS.
Periodically, we catch up with the Blues vice-captain, Jacob Wiedering. Jacob, welcome back to the program.
Thanks, Anthony. Back to it.
You do live interesting seasons, don't you?
We do. We do at Carlton. It's been a funny old year, as we said, as we got on the phone. It's great to be speaking to you, one, after a couple of wins. I think the confidence around the joint environment... is clearly riding a bit of a high at the moment, which is great, but we've got to keep a pretty level head, as we've seen sort of in the past.
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Chapter 6: How is Jacob Weitering feeling about his current injury?
So I think we'll be doing the right things at the moment, Gerard. It's pretty fun to be a part of, for sure. I'd love to be out there as well. Hopefully I can get back this week and be a part of what we're doing at the moment.
All right, so we'll do big picture in a tick, but just tell us about your calf at the moment.
It's getting there. It's a little frustrating. I've been relatively durable over my career and it seems to be that the calf is the Achilles heel, I guess, if you like. I've had a few in that left calf now and we felt sort of, both medical team and myself felt that it would be good to to just give it a few extra weeks.
Chapter 7: What changes have occurred in Carlton's performance this season?
And that buy was also very handy to get during that period. So it's really good. I got 10Ks out on Saturday. I'll be training fully today and testing on Thursday to see if I can go on Saturday. So frustrating, but at the same time, glad I can sort of get not a mini pre-season in, but just rehab it correctly without rushing it back.
So you were rested once or managed with it once and then played. When you played, did you feel it right through?
Chapter 8: What are the implications of the upcoming high-pressure games for Carlton?
What was the scenario there?
Yeah, I mean, again, if we go back a little bit to the Dogs game, I did it sort of a low-grade strain in the game quite early, played on it and missed a week in Port Adelaide and then rehabbed it all right, I think.
train like a madman that week and I actually probably had my highest load for the year against the Geelong boys and, you know, I was pretty happy about the win and the way we went about it and all the rest of it and tried to train like a madman that next week and that's when I sort of said this doesn't feel quite right in training and thought it wasn't the best option to play against Essendon.
So the medical team have been great at that communication piece and making sure that I'm comfortable with my body and that I can do a job for the team for four quarters. So there's a long way to go in the season and we didn't want to jeopardise that.
So that's sort of where it's at at the moment. And as I said, hopefully we can get up for this week. Ultimately, who will make that call come Thursday or indeed Saturday? Is it your call? Is it in conjunction with the medical staff? How does it work from here? It'll be a bit of both. There's the eye test for sure.
I feel like I'm almost back to 100% fully fit. So I've just got to train well today. The main session is Thursday, so there'll be some matches in there as well to get through. But, yeah, for me, I've just got to do all the right things, tick all the right boxes, and then just be honest with the medical staff. So we'll get through that.
All right. Well, good luck for that little bit. Thank you. So we spoke in the interim on crunch time, but a lot has happened since we last spoke on this program is ā What would you ā if I asked you what has changed, what would you tell me?
We haven't lost. That's probably a start. I mean, I think I did mention the ā it has been mentioned a few times, but ā the nature in which Fosse sort of left the club allowed us as a group and as a club to move forward. And the term circuit breaker has been used quite a bit. And it's just funny how football works. Sometimes you just need that.
There was a bit of weight lifted off, maybe certain players' shoulders, certain staff.
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