By Jon Pierik
The 2025 AFL finals will begin with a bang when Collingwood make the trek back to Adelaide to face the Crows in a blockbuster Thursday night qualifying final.
And the Brisbane Lions will head to Melbourne to meet Geelong in a Friday night qualifying final at the MCG, the two teams potentially reprising their monumental preliminary final battle of last year when the Lions won by 10 points. Both finals will begin at 7.40pm AEST.
Back we go: The Magpies will head to Adelaide for week one of the finals.Credit: Getty Images
The two elimination finals will be held in Sydney and Perth on Saturday September 6, but full details cannot be locked until after Wednesday night’s rescheduled home-and-away clash between the Suns and 15th-placed Essendon on the Gold Coast.
If the Suns win, they will jump from 9th into the eight, knocking the Western Bulldogs out. The Suns need to beat the Bombers by enough to lift their percentage by 0.84 to finish seventh and push Hawthorn down to 8th.
The team that finishes 7th will play an elimination final against Fremantle in Perth, probably on the Saturday night, while Greater Western Sydney will host the 8th-placed team in Sydney, potentially in a twilight fixture.
This chart shows the winning margin the Suns would need to achieve, depending on Essendon’s final score, to finish 7th.
AFL head of strategy and scheduling Josh Bowler said full details of the week one finals fixture would be released later this week.
“Wednesday night’s rescheduled game still has an impact on the final eight but with the top four locked in we wanted to give fans some certainty and allow them to plan,” Bowler said.
“We still have an incredibly exciting final match of the home and away season to come with the Gold Coast Suns playing for a spot in their first finals series.”
Under the AFL’s contract with the Melbourne Cricket Club, any Victorian final that has a chance of securing a crowd of 60,000 fans must be played at the MCG, meaning the Cats’ home base of GMHBA Stadium – with a capacity of 40,000 – cannot be used.
Cats coach Chris Scott said on Saturday the AFL’s stance on home finals was “logically unfair”.
“I feel really strongly and we feel strongly as a club that clubs should get to choose where they play their 11 home games. And it’s up to the AFL to decide what they prioritise in finals,” Scott said.
“I think they’ve been quite clear that they have other priorities other than what would be logically fair. That’s their prerogative.”
Tickets for the qualifying finals will go on sale this Thursday.
The Magpies can expect a hostile reception in Adelaide, just weeks after their round 23 loss at the same venue. Izak Rankine was suspended for four games for a homophobic slur made during that match.
While the Crows snapped a 10-game losing streak against the Magpies, they will now be without one of their most important players potentially for the entire finals campaign.
Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell is confident his team can win four straight finals in September to win the flag, having missed a top-four berth. The Hawks are 1-5 outside of Victoria and Tasmania this season, the one victory coming against Sydney in Opening Round.
“They’ve all been close ones. That’ll turn. We’ll probably play interstate in our first final, so odds are in our favour,” Mitchell said.
“We’re not writing ourselves off. We’re disappointed, but excited. We get to play four finals instead of three now. Finals footy for the second year in a row, which is great for our group.”
The Hawks have lost to Fremantle, Adelaide and now the Lions over the past seven weeks.
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