AFL Beat 2026 – Season Preview!

The AFL season starts this week with the “Opening Round” which the AFL has done for two years now and it’s apparently here to stay. Oh, and this year, we have a WILD CARD! In the God Knows How Many years I’ve been actively following the AFL (not counting my years in the 80s when the league was on ESPN 2), things have changed a lot and continue to change. So, what’s new for this year? First, let’s start with how things ended last year. Then, we can focus on what’s happened during the preseason. Finally, we can look ahead to this week.

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The Final AFL Ladder from last year

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AFL Grand Final Highlights

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The AFL Preseason Results

The AFL Preseason Highlights

AFL Opening Round Standings and Schedule

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AFL Footy Tipping Contest Last Year’s Results

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Notes and Comments

Alas, the iconic Centre Bounce is no more. The AFL killed it because apparently the refs can’t do it correctly so instead of spending time and money teaching them, they decided to just fuggedaboutit. Also, they decided they wanted to subscribe to the NHL’s newsletter, so now 10 out of the 18 teams will get into the playoffs. The top 4 will continue to get byes and the Double Chance. 5 and 6 will get byes. 7 to 10 will play immediately after the last round to see who plays 5 and 6. God, I sound more and more like an old man every day. GET OFF MY LAWN!

I wouldn’t put too much stock into the preseason results. Like the NFL, different teams take different approaches and there is a lot of experimentation. The good thing is that the preseason has been cut down to just one game. The interesting part about this off-season is that we had a State of Origin game prior to the preseason games. This was held in Perth and matched up players from Victoria against players from Western Australia. A good time was had by all and it was successful enough that there is talk that it may come back next year.

The Brisbane Lions are (AGAIN) your defending champs. As you saw in the video above, they overcame the Geelong Cats to win back to back Premierships. Truth be told, they are a VERY good chance to win again as they return pretty much everyone.

BFC still owes us a Boots On The Ground from his last trip to Australia as well as his adventures on playing the actual game in the States. Don’t think we have forgotten!

I will not make any predictions this year because it seems like it’s Brisbane against everyone else. However, Carlton, Collingwood, Gold Coast, Geelong, and Sydney should contend.

Congratulations to Sharkbait, who edged SonOfSpam to take last year’s AFL Tipping Competition! Make sure to join again this year to see if we can dethrone him! Action starts TONIGHT, so make sure to get your tips in!!

If you are a member of an AFL club or you got a Watch AFL membership, you should be able to watch every AFL and AFLW game, including replays. Game times vary between Australian afternoon and evening, which actually makes it easier for us in North America to watch as the games can be seeing in the evenings on Pacific Time and early mornings on Eastern time.

If you haven’t become a member of a club or signed up for the Watch AFL app, you can still watch the AFL and AFLW games in the USA on either FS1 or FS2 and in Canada on TSN. Showtimes can be found here on the Australian Football Association of North America website. But I do recommend that you join a club. It’s fun and they send you free shit.

See you next week!