The AFL has confirmed Adelaide’s Round 23 clash with Geelong will be played at 1.05pm on Saturday, September 5 at Simonds Stadium.
The Round 23 ‘floating fixture’ was finalised on Wednesday afternoon and has the Crows and Cats to clash for premiership points for the first time since last year’s season opener.
Geelong also hosted Adelaide at Simonds Stadium back in March as part of this year's NAB Challenge.
The two clubs were scheduled to meet in Round 14 at Adelaide Oval, but the match was abandoned due to the tragic passing of Crows Senior Coach Phil Walsh, who spent four years at Kardinia Park in a Strength and Conditioning role.
Adelaide will have a six-day turnaround from its Round 22 clash with West Coast at Adelaide Oval on the previous Sunday. Geelong confronts Collingwood on Friday night at the MCG in the penultimate round.
Click here to see Adelaide’s full 2015 Fixture
Richmond and North Melbourne will kick off the round on Friday night at Etihad Stadium with both clubs firmly in finals contention.
All clubs currently inside the AFL’s top four are scheduled to play on Saturday. Sydney, Hawthorn and West Coast all play at home while Fremantle must travel to Adelaide Oval to play Port Adelaide on Saturday afternoon.
Collingwood and Essendon contest the final game of the round at the MCG on Sunday at 3.20pm.
Round 23 Toyota AFL Premiership Season
Friday, September 4
Richmond v North Melbourne (Etihad Stadium, 7.50pm)
Saturday, September 5
Geelong v Adelaide (Simonds Stadium, 1.05pm)
Brisbane v Western Bulldogs (Gabba, 1.45pm)
Port Adelaide v Fremantle (Adelaide Oval, 3.20pm)
Hawthorn v Carlton (MCG, 4.40pm)
West Coast v St Kilda (Domain Stadium, 5.40pm)
Sydney v Gold Coast (SCG, 7.20pm)
Sunday, September 6
Melbourne v Greater Western Sydney (Etihad Stadium, 1.10pm)
Collingwood v Essendon (MCG, 3.20pm)
AFL's rationale on the Round 23 fixture
It was the AFL’s view that the Richmond v North Melbourne match should be scheduled on the Friday night as this was the only game in Round 23 that featured two sides in the current top eight to be playing against each other.
All Round 23 games involving the current top-four sides (Fremantle away against Port Adelaide, West Coast hosting St Kilda, Hawthorn hosting Carlton and the Sydney Swans hosting the Gold Coast Suns) were scheduled to be played across Saturday September 5, so that all of these teams were playing on the same lead-in to the opening week of the finals.
As Fremantle, West Coast, and Sydney Swans had all been scheduled to play the previous Sunday in Round 22, none of the matches involving those teams could be played on the Friday night as each club would have only had a five-day break before playing on Friday September 4.
Hawthorn v Carlton was scheduled to play on the Saturday as it was felt that since three teams could not be scheduled for Friday, and Hawthorn was not currently in the top two positions on the ladder, all teams in the current top four should therefore be played on the same day on Saturday September 5.
Fremantle’s game at the Adelaide Oval, against Port Adelaide, was fixtured to be a mid-afternoon game, to enable the Dockers to return home that evening, while West Coast and the Sydney Swans were scheduled as night matches, due to the fact that both teams were playing at home.
The remaining matches involving current top-eight sides – Brisbane Lions v fifth-placed Western Bulldogs and eighth-placed Geelong Cats v Adelaide Crows – were each scheduled as day games on Saturday September 5, which will enable the Bulldogs and ninth-placed Crows to return home that evening from Queensland and Victoria respectively.
The last two Sunday match slots – Melbourne v GWS Giants and Collingwood v Essendon - were determined on the basis that both those games involved four sides currently outside the top eight.
