Danger’s radical plan

GEELONG champion Patrick Dangerfield has floated his radical idea on how to revamp the AFL schedule.

As debate continues over the merits of the existing 22round fixture, Dangerfield, a member of the AFL Players Association, says he is a fan of a shorter 17-match season.

But he cannot see the majority of his colleagues giving that concept the green light if that meant a pay cut.

“I don’t mind it, but I think if you said to the vast majority of players, ‘it’s going to be a 17week season, so if you’re going to cut the season by 20 per cent, well we’re going to cut your pay by 20 per cent’, then I don’t think too many would put their hand up and say yes to it,” he told SEN yesterday.

“I think 17 games makes sense purely because of the fact that it’s fair — you play everyone once.”

The star Cat, who was at the forefront last year as the player body pushed for its new pay deal, then suggested his idea on how to create greater equality from the fixture.

“What if you played everyone twice, so you played 34 games? But instead of playing 120 minutes of footy, you cut it to 18-minute fixed quarters, so you’re playing less than 80 minutes of footy?” he said.

“I’ve worked it out, it’s bit over five games extra that you’d play a season ... obviously in terms of the revenue that would create, it would jump significantly because there’d be more games played.

“Rather than [clubs] say you can come back in November, you would only give clubs a six-week window of preparation

“You talk to most staff and they say, ‘we need 10 weeks to get our players or we need 12 weeks to get our players ready’, but if you put it as mandatory — you’ve got six weeks, good luck, that’s what it is . . . then you’d just have to adjust to it.”

The 2016 Brownlow medallist was also quizzed as to what advice he would give Richmond star Dustin Martin after his historic 2017 season.