AFL Fixtures: Ranking the difficulty of your AFL team's fixture for the 2020 season

The 2020 AFL fixtures have been released with some mouth-watering matches getting fans excited for the year ahead. 

Richmond will take on Carlton in the opening game of the season, while Sydney will host Essendon and Joe Daniher in round two. 

Every year fans ask the same question, how good is my team's draw?

Well this year, Sporting News has you covered with a formula to evaluate the strength of your team's draw. 

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Take a look at how we make our calculations down below. 

How we calculate the strength of the fixtures?

Points will be awarded to teams the more difficult their fixture is, so the team with the most points at the end will have the most difficult draw.

We've broken the draw into three different categories to base our calculations on. 

First, points are awarded based on the team you are playing and where they finished in the 2019 home & away season. 

Second, points will be awarded based on the number of short or long turnarounds they have. 

Finally, teams will be given points or have points taken away if they have extended stretch of games at home or away.

These are only given if teams would have otherwise had to have flown interstate for that game.

For example, Collingwood having to play Carlton away at the MCG doesn't count as an 'away game'.

The final influencer on the overall difficulty is whether the team has to play top four clubs back-to-back or in some cases, three weeks in a row.

POINTS TABLE JUST ON HOME AND AWAY FIXTURES

Based on just the draw, West Coast have been handed the toughest draw purely based on the teams they face based on their 2019 finishing position. 

West Coast play seven out of a possible eight matches against top four finishers from 2019.

Collingwood and the GIANTS have also been handed a relatively tough draw while Carlton could consider themselves unlucky. 

Down the other end of the table, the Western Bulldogs, St Kilda and Fremantle have what could be considered the easiest draw. 

The 2019 Premiers have also lucked out with a relatively favourable draw. 

ADJUSTING THE TABLE FOR VARIABLES

Now we take those numbers and adjust them for things like short or long turnarounds, stretches of home/away games and back-to-back top-four clashes that can be harder to bounce back from. 

Here is a table of the combined total for all those adjustments. 

The biggest points influence here is for Brisbane, mainly because of their number of short turnarounds and back-to-back top four fixtures. 

The Lions play Geelong and Richmond in rounds seven and eight and Collingwood and Geelong in rounds 16 and 17. They also have one five-day turnaround and six six-day turnarounds. 

Hawthorn have five points to add to their difficulty, facing Collingwood and Geelong in rounds three and four. They also face Brisbane in round one in a horror opening month of footy. 

On the other end of the spectrum, Carlton, Essendon and Port Adelaide come out more favourably thanks to some longer turnarounds and more home games. 

Port Adelaide, in particular, have a stretch of three straight games in Adelaide from rounds 13 to 15, including a showdown against the Crows. 

FINAL TABLE OF FIXTURE DIFFICULTY

The Hawks have been handed the toughest draw according to our calculations, as previously mentioned due to the number of their back-to-back matches against top four opponents. 

West Coast follow not far behind thanks to their seven six-day turnarounds and having to play seven out of eight possible matches against the 2019 top four.

Western Bulldogs have been given what can be seen as the easiest draw, with only playing each of last year's top four once. For a team that finished inside the top eight, that is great news for Bulldogs fans. 

Port Adelaide closely follow thanks to a number of back-to-back games at Adelaide Oval and thanks to the fact they also only play each of last year's top four once. 

TOUGHEST START TO 2020

Based purely on who they are playing, Hawthorn has the toughest opening month. They come up against Brisbane, Fremantle, Collingwood and Geelong. 

Down the other end, the Swans, Bombers and Dockers have a good start to the year, avoiding all the top four sides and each playing bottom four sides at least twice. 

TOUGHEST END TO 2020