The AFL has officially postponed the two Opening Round games that were scheduled to be played in Queensland, as the southeast region of the state prepares to face the full brunt of Tropical Cyclone Alfred.
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Thursday night’s 2025 season-opener between Brisbane and Geelong at the Gabba and Saturday’s Gold Coast-Essendon fixture at People First Stadium have been scrapped from Opening Round.
The league is yet to decide on rescheduling, with a Tuesday afternoon statement reading: “The AFL will announce the alternate schedule for these matches as soon as possible as we continue to work with clubs and venues on possible scenarios.”
The AFL’s decision was made in conjunction with the Queensland Government, the Bureau of Meteorology and Stadiums Queensland.
The Brisbane vs Geelong game is very likely to be played in Round 3, when both teams have a bye week, but finding a home for Gold Coast vs Essendon is much trickier.
The Suns and Bombers don’t share a bye, either in the early-season phase or at mid-season, with Nine’s Tom Morris reporting there are three options on the table.
One would include moving existing games around so that the game can squeeze in-between – notably Essendon has a Round 16 bye before hosting Gold Coast in Round 17 – with another option seeing multiple games changed, involving common opponents, replacing later byes.
Common opponents in that area of the fixture include Geelong and GWS, so those teams could see their games moved around.
The least-preferable option would be playing the game during the pre-finals bye. That would be undesirable because, if either side is in finals contention, it would leave the finals fixture up in the air and create travel problems for the following week.
But if neither side was in finals contention, it would create a bizarre dead rubber that only matters for draft position and bragging rights.
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It’s believed this will be the first time since 1963 the V/AFL has rescheduled games due to bad weather. In that year, an entire round (and thus the rest of the season) was pushed back a week due to heavy rain in Melbourne which flooded the grounds.
The postponements leave just two games to be played in Opening Round, with the SCG to now host the first game for premiership points between Sydney and Hawthorn on Friday night.
The Bureau of Meteorology has significantly upped its official forecast for Brisbane in the last 24 hours, with the maximum amount of rain predicted for the state’s capital increasing by nearly 100mm on Thursday, and 80mm on Friday.
Winds exceeding 130km/h are expected for both days.
“As I said yesterday, the priority is that we do everything we can to ensure the health and safety of everyone in and around any potential cyclone zone or community impacted by the forecast heavy rains and storm surges.” AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon said in the league’s Tuesday release.
“It is a very uncertain situation that is unfolding, and our thoughts are with everyone in southeast Queensland and northern NSW that may be impacted. Ultimately, we hope this weather event doesn’t eventuate, but we know everyone needs to prepare accordingly and we don’t want our games to be a distraction to those preparations.
“We want to make the decision now to give clubs and fans certainty in an uncertain environment and allow anyone from Queensland who would normally be involved in this game through coaching, playing, attending or working at the venue time to be home with their families and available in the community if required.”
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