I’ll write about this every year until it happens, but Opening Round needs to go.

Not just because I dislike the concept, (although soft launching a national competition is a bit weird), but because it creates another integrity problem in a competition that already struggles with fixture balance.

And the problem is the byes.

Eight clubs are forced to take one of their two breaks before they have even played a game.

Byes are valuable when the season has taken its toll. When bodies are sore, players are managing injuries and coaches need a week to reset structures or rework a game plan that isn’t quite working.

That’s when a bye can change the trajectory of a season, making them so valuable.

Burning one before Round One is a massive disadvantage.

Meanwhile, the clubs playing in Opening Round have their first break within the first four rounds

The league has essentially given two byes to 10 teams, and one bye to the other eight.

In a competition decided by small margins, that’s a big advantage.

Fans accept imperfect fixtures because some imbalance is unavoidable. What’s harder to accept is when the league creates new ones on purpose.

And I’ll happily die on that hill.

The uneven start to the year becomes even clearer when you look at the preparation windows across the competition.

Brisbane and Geelong both played deep into September last year as grand finalists.

West Coast, who finished last and didn’t play in opening round, have had a much longer off-season.

Incredibly, by the time the Eagles play their first game of the season on Sunday, the Lions will already have played five matches since West Coast last took the field.

The AFL fixture is never going to be perfectly fair. With 18 teams you can’t play everyone twice. Rivalries need to be protected; marquee matches are locked in and stadium logistics complicate matters further.

The South Australian Cricket Association has held firm that the Adelaide Oval will be not available until round two, as it’s still cricket season to them.

So, some imbalance is unavoidable. But there’s a difference between managing unavoidable inequalities and creating new ones, unnecessarily.

Opening Round does exactly that.

It was originally pitched as a way to showcase the northern markets and grow the game in NRL territory. But when Collingwood and St Kilda — famously not northern State sides — were made part of Opening Round for this season. drawing the biggest crowd, it’s clear the concept has become heavily diluted.

At this point it’s not about growing the game.

It’s about creating another event and starting the AFL earlier to combat the NRL Las Vegas curtain raiser.

But, at what cost?

The season is already long, and the fixture already asks clubs to deal with uneven travel schedules.

There is no reason the AFL can’t start with a full round of games, while still highlighting and championing the northern State sides but having them all play at home and playing in the prime time slots

An easy fix, that doesn’t create any issues with byes.

Integrity in sport matters. It’s one of the foundations competitions are built on.

Fans accept imperfect fixtures because some imbalance is unavoidable.

What’s harder to accept is when the league creates new ones on purpose.

Opening Round does exactly that and it needs to go.