Rewarding mediocrity or providing new hope? AFL confirms divisive finals wildcard plan

A picture


The AFL has defended its decision to expand the finals series to 10 clubs with the introduction of a divisive “wildcard round” from next season.The two additional matches will be held during the weekend that has been used for a pre-finals bye in the men’s competition while the AFLW will lose the clear air it has had for early-round fixtures over the past three seasons.The expansion of the finals series will see the clubs that finished seventh and 10th meet in a cut-throat final, while eighth will play ninth with the winner to extend their season.The top six sides at the end of the home and away season will continue to enjoy a week off.“Our fans love finals games, so we think it provides opportunities and hope for our fans,” AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon said.

“I’ve got plenty of good feedback from the clubs overnight,“Our fans love finals and they love games of consequence,We know those games are the best attended and most watched on television,”A wildcard round this year would have seen seventh-placed Gold Coast play their club-first final against 2024 runners-up Sydney,The other wildcard clash would have allowed Western Bulldogs to continue their season against eighth-placed Hawthorn.

The Bulldogs missed out on a finals spot when defeated by the Dockers in a virtual round-24 elimination final, while the top 10 this year was already locked in after round 22.The new finals format is expected to reward sides that finish in the top six while making it more difficult for the seventh- and eight-placed teams to repeat the Bulldogs’ run in 2016 when they became the first – and still only – club to win a premiership from outside the top five.“I don’t think it rewards mediocrity,” Dillon said.“It makes that gap between sixth and seventh something clubs will strive for.“You’ll have a big difference between first and second with the home final.

Third and fourth, you get the double chance.Fifth and sixth you get the week off and seventh and eighth you host a home wildcard final.”While Dillon talked up increased interest in the expanded finals series, the AFL Fans Association (AFLFA) has found that 77% of fans do not support the wildcard round.Sign up to Australia SportGet a daily roundup of the latest sports news, features and comment from our Australian sports deskafter newsletter promotionAn AFLFA survey highlighted concerns with rewarding mediocrity and diluting the significance of season-long performance as the majority of clubs earn a finals place.“Fans want a fair game, the wildcard proposal smacks of unfairness and reinforces wider concerns about fixture design and scheduling,” AFLFA president Ron Issko said.

The wildcard round is the biggest shake up to the finals series since the AFL introduced a pre-finals bye in 2016,The weekend without men’s football has given the AFLW space to showcase the competition over the past three seasons but the women’s league will now crossover with the start of the AFL finals series,“W is super important for us,” Dillon said,“But we saw this year with rounds one and two overlapping with the last two rounds of the men’s competition, that the AFLW and the AFL men’s competitions will co-exist successfully,“And we just see this as a further iteration of that and we get then all of October and all of November to celebrate AFLW.

A picture

More than a third of whisky drinkers are female. Time for the industry to wake up to women

Why wait for International Women’s Day to celebrate women? A commemorative day is a good excuse, true, but we don’t need to wait to recognise the contributions of female and female-identifying individuals to the drinks industry. Right? Right.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more

A picture

Jimi Famurewa’s recipe for Marmite and leek homity pie

The first time I encountered homity pie was in a disused train carriage. It was Deptford market in the late 2000s: a reliably chaotic, noisy morass of jostling bodies, the wafted smell of sweating burger onions and a vast section where the “stalls” generally comprised gatherings of orphaned trainers, boxy VHS players and other random house-clearance items dumped on to lengths of tarpaulin. I was an eager but gastronomically green 25-year-old in my first proper flatshare and this ragtag locus of trade became an early site of core dining memories. I thoughtfully appraised very ordinary vegetables, channelling Rick Stein in Gascony; bought warm, hectically seeded granary loaves from the Percy Ingle bakery; ate average pub Thai, better kerbside rotisserie chicken; and generally tried, with limited success, to ignore the creeping sense that I had settled in a part of town that wanted for some structure or culinary vitality.It was this atmosphere of cultural nascence into which the Deptford Project trundled

A picture

$1.50 mangoes: Australia’s best-value fruit and veg for November

Kensington Pride, Calypso and Honey Gold mangoes are the juiciest of the crop right now – but avoid potatoes until prices come back downGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailHot weather in the Northern Territory has been favourable for summer’s golden child.“Everyone should be eating mangoes right now,” says Josh Flamminio, co-owner of Galluzzo Fruiterers in Sydney.The mango abundance will continue throughout the month and will only get better as supply from Queensland increases. Flamminio is selling larger premium mangoes for $2.50 to $3 each, and smaller-sized ones for $1

A picture

How to turn the dregs of a tin of golden syrup into a delectable toffee sauce – recipe | Waste not

Lyle’s golden syrup comes in the most ornate and nostalgic of tins, but the syrup inside often proves almost impossible to extract entirely. Turn what might otherwise be wasted into this luxurious toffee sauce to savour on Bonfire Night, especially when drizzled generously over cinnamon baked apples with scoops of vanilla ice-cream.Apples transform beautifully when baked, turning this hyper-seasonal fruit into a super-simple yet decadent dessert. I prefer cox or braeburn varieties (ie, something not too large), so you can serve one apple per person.Gordon Ramsay’s recipes are my go-to for traditional techniques that deliver reliable results

A picture

Mirepoix kimchi and vegetarian umami chilli: Kenji Morimoto’s recipes for cooking with homemade ferments

Cooking with ferments brings a tremendous amount of flavour to whatever you’re making, and it’s a great way to showcase how an ingredient evolves through the application of heat. The idea of combining a Korean preservation method with a French technique is exactly what I love about creativity in the kitchen. This mirepoix kimchi is not just a fun ferment to dot on savoury oatmeal or eat alongside cheese, but it also acts as the backbone for a plant-based, umami-filled chilli.This versatile, umami-rich paste is a twist on the classic mirepoix and can be used to add a hit of flavour to everything from soups to marinades, or even enjoyed as is.Prep 10 min Ferment 2 weeks+ Makes 500ml jar150g carrot 150g white onion 150g celery 13½g salt (or 3% of the total weight of the first three ingredients)½ tbsp red miso, or fish sauce½ tbsp sugar 15g gochugaru chilli flakesRoughly chop the vegetables (there is no need to peel the carrots if they have been rinsed), then put them in a food processor

A picture

The many uses of leftover chutney, from breakfast to soups and glazes | Kitchen aide

Every Christmas I’m given chutney, and I still have four barely used jars. What to do with them before the next lot arrive? Christine, OxfordThis sounds like a job for Claire Dinhut, author of The Condiment Book, who also goes by the moniker Condiment Claire. She would approach this meal by meal, starting with breakfast. “It might not seem so obvious,” she says, “but I put Branston pickle on my avocado toast. If you think about it, you often add acidity, which is usually lemon, but chutney is punchy and has that same tang, as well as a bit of texture