A forgettable AFL season has hardly been one for the ages, as months of predictable results and dead rubbers have provided fodder for the easily outraged and wildcard round campaigners. The damp squib has meant the slowest of burns while fans wait for an endless stream of Thursday and Friday night fizzers to pass, and for jeopardy to return.
But the season is set to be ignited by do-or-die clashes between premiership fancies arriving a week early, and could even be saved by a finals series to be played out between eight evenly matched teams. The all-too familiar late-season collapse from Fremantle has set up a winner-takes-all encounter with Western Bulldogs on Sunday, as the AFL pulls off its annual trick of waiting until the final round to get its fixturing right.
