THE PROSPECT of a longer season once Tasmania enters the competition has the potential to widen the gap between finals contenders and rebuilding teams, according to club high performance managers. 

The concerns come amid efforts in the high performance sector to re-work the structure of AFL pre-seasons to remove the significant interruptions that currently exist between January and round one.  

The AFL is working through fixture options for 2028 and beyond when the competition expands to 19 teams, with an increased 24-game season among the models being considered. 

There are concerns among high performance staff, however, that an extra match would bring the start date of the season forward again and reduce the length of pre-season, giving clubs less time with their players during that important phase of the year. 

While that is less concerning for finals teams that have hardened players who continue training and playing into September, reduced access to players during pre-season is an issue that has already been flagged by rebuilding coaches Adem Yze and Andrew McQualter. 

"There's clearly going to be some implications from playing an extra game as it obviously increases the length of the season, and if you're not going to push the season into October, then that means that the season starts a week earlier," one club high performance boss told AFL.com.au.

"That will shorten the pre-season again if you're not going to budge on the time [when players are] coming back.

"Then as the seasons get longer, the younger clubs are going to find it harder to stay healthy. So there will definitely be some clubs who want more time with the players, and there'll be some who are happy with less."

McQualter told AFL.com.au in February that access to players during the pre-season was the biggest issue in the game for his club, particularly if the season is extended further. 

"I've got the youngest squad in the competition and just the amount of time we get to train and educate them, it's a big challenge at the moment," the coach said.  

"I think the break they have in the off-season and Christmas is longer than it's ever been. 

"So just the amount of training and education we can actually squeeze into our players is a bit of a challenge these days, particularly with a young squad. 

"I'm not really sure of the answer, because the season's getting longer as well, so it's harder, but maybe just a little bit more time when we've got a young squad would be really beneficial for us."

Yze also put the issue on the agenda during the pre-season and highlighted the disjointed nature of summer training, with players returning at different points in November and then stopping for a mandated three-week break over Christmas and returning from January 7 at the earliest. 

One of the main concerns among high performance staff is the period from early January until round one, which includes several interruptions like community camps, player inductions, broadcast shoots, and a mandated four-day break for players.

While acknowledging those player commitments were important, many high performance staff want to move as many of them as possible into the pre-Christmas period so they can prepare players better from the start of January.  

That would allow them to build players' fitness and resilience with a "periodised" approach, usually mapping out three weeks of increasing workloads before a down week, and repeating that process until hitting their in-season structure for practice games. 

A stacked calendar through January and February currently means high performance staff are making compromises with their programs that potentially contribute to early-season injury spikes, like the League saw in 2026. 

"What we're after from a high performance point of view is a block of time that's uninterrupted, and the block of time we have now isn't really long enough," another high performance manager told AFL.com.au.

"The way that we would ideally map out our pre-seasons is to have a really good, periodised approach, working off a three-up, one-down model. 

"But over the last couple of years, that's been impossible to do, because some clubs are getting two weeks before Christmas and then we come back and have two weeks before a four-day break. 

"Then we've got a lot in the program [after Christmas] that doesn't allow us to have a perfect periodised model."

Strength and conditioning, sports science and fitness staff are all represented by the AFL High Performance Association (AFLHPA), which has been surveying its members about the ideal pre-season structure. 

Launched in 2024, the Association has held talks with the AFL about the post-Christmas period of pre-season and been encouraged by the League's feedback on moving certain player commitments. 

While the potential changes to the fixture once Tasmania enters the competition have been a hot topic among high performance staff and some coaches, they have not yet held talks with the League on that subject. 

The League told AFL.com.au its position on season structure had not shifted anywhere at this point, and it was still working through different models from 2028 onward when Tasmania enters the competition. 

AFL executive general manager of football performance Greg Swann told the Seven Network recently that the League was looking to reduce game length even further, following rule changes that cut up to three minutes from matches. 

"We've knocked off three minutes per game but is it enough? Probably not," he said. 

"In a couple of years time, obviously when Tassie comes in, if we go from 22 to 24 games, then it will definitely be an issue. You will have to reduce the game times, so we'll have a look at that, perhaps in the off-season as well." 

Those staff spoken to by AFL.com.au were emphatic, however, that losing a post-Christmas week of pre-season training would "absolutely" have equalisation consequences, given the different needs of finals teams and rebuilding clubs. 

"A non-finals team will already have a month less football this year compared to the Grand Final sides, but the grand finalists will come back for pre-season two weeks later," one staffer said.

"So they're getting more work into their players, and it's really specific work at the pointy end for that extra month that they're training.

"It might not seem much for a month, but it's the highest-end football you can get, so you can imagine what that training will do to the long-term development of those kids versus the kids in a non-finals team's program."