On the Six Points AFL Podcast, Daniel Harford and Mark Stevens have questioned the standard of football on display during the early rounds of the 2026 AFL season.
“I've found it really interesting, the standard of footy. It's been talked down a bit this year. Look, it wasn't a sensational round, apart from [Sunday]," Stevens said on this week's episode.
"A lot of mistakes, decision-making errors... What is it? Is the talent sort of too thinly spread? Most clubs have got their full list up and about at the moment.”
Harford fears the pool of players will only worsen with the addition of Tasmania, with the AFL's pending expansion to further weaken the standard.
“The talent pool has always been thinly spread, and it's going to get worse with the introduction of a new team in a couple of years with Tassie," Harford said.
“There are too many teams in the competition and not enough quality players to fill those spots on the list. So you end up getting guys who hang around, or get opportunities where in the old days they wouldn't have been up to the level.
“So you are going to get situations like we have seen across the first couple of rounds, particularly when bad teams play bad teams... you are going to get bad footy.”
Harford believes the early fixture has impacted the quality of football, with the lower ladder teams from last season facing off against each other to start the year.
“We've talked about this for a long time; bad teams are bad teams for a reason," Harford said.
"They're just not overly classy, they haven't got high levels of skill or system, and that's the reason we get poor teams playing poor teams in poor games of footy."
"It actually makes sense when you break it down.”
