The pre-finals bye has corrupted the historic pattern of the AFL finals

I had a lovely weekend!

We went to Hamilton on Friday night – musicals aren’t really my thing, but it was brilliant.

Off to Caulfield for the races on Saturday, thoroughly enjoyable.

And we took the kids in to walk the tan with the sun out yesterday.

Nice for me, but completely irrelevant in the debate about the pre-finals bye.

It’s not about whether we all manage to fill the gap weekend … it’s about the impact it has on the finals series and how it has corrupted the advantages established across 23 grueling weeks.

The change in trend is irrefutable and it settles on the Qualifying Final winners who run into another idle week rather than earning the advantage of a breather over their rivals.

Between 2000 and 2015, 75 per cent of the time both QF winners went on to win their Prelims.

Once the bye became a disruptor that plummeted to 20%.

And the instances of both QF winners losing the Prelims went from 0 per cent across 16 seasons, to 40 per cent once the bye became a factor.

So it’s not about whether you or I had a lovely weekend. It’s about altering the terms of the month that matters.

The only way to get a precious weekend off in the finals series was to win it, and when you did the advantages were enormous.

Now it is gifted to all and it has corrupted the historic pattern.

I hope it goes with the change of Chief Executive.