No goodbye to the bye

AFL chief executive Gill McLachlan has strongly defended the contentious pre-finals bye weekend, saying that while he won’t guarantee it forever, there would need to be a compelling reason to shelve it in the short term.

McLachlan said no decision would be made on what hap- pens next year until a full assessment of this year’s finals.

But he has been buoyed by last year’s record-breaking finals series and forecasts another big September this year.

“We made a change for known reasons,” McLachlan said yesterday.

“We think there’s actually been a lot of upside because of it. We dealt with an integrity issue and then last year’s finals series was remarkable.

“I’m not sure why [there is] continued speculation because the build-up’s going to be fabulous again.

“The ticket sales [for this year] are strong and we’ve had a great year. I’m not sure why we’re talking about it.”

But McLachlan stressed that the bye after Round 23 would continue to be assessed.

“You can’t guarantee that it will be here forever. I can’t give you that commitment,” he said.

Only last week, Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson took a swipe at the bye, saying it compromised the clubs who qualified for the top four and gave too much of an advantage to the teams outside of it.

McLachlan said the West- ern Bulldogs’ premiership triumph last year, after finishing seventh at the end of the home-and-away season, showed how the bye gave clubs the best possible chance to have the best players available at the right time.

He said the AFL was able to better showcase other major events such as the All-Australian team, the Rising Star, AFLW state-of-origin and the EJ Whitten Legends match, as well as ensuring players have the best chance of playing.

“If last year is anything to go by, where we had the highest-rating finals series, the third-highest attended, the quality of the football and contest was unbelievable,” he said.

“I am not sure what the downside is.”