There are some constraints around fixturing, particularly at the start of the season. In particular, the Easter Show affects the Giants' access to their home ground for a few weeks early in the season. Easter is late in 2019, so it's not unreasonable for the AFL to want to maximise home games for the Giants before the Easter Show starts. And given that they generally have us playing away when the Giants are at home, that affects us. I don't see that as part of any (imagined or real) fixturing conspiracy against us. It's just dealing with the situations that exist.
We used to have issues gaining access to the SCG in the first week or two of the season because the cricket took precedence - ie the SCG wasn't available until it was known that the NSW Sheffield Shield team wouldn't be hosting the finals series there. And since the AFL does its fixturing long before that can be known, it generally meant we didn't typically have games fixtured there in the first couple of weeks of the season. If you look back at the fixture until a couple of seasons ago, you'll see that our first home game was invariably at Stadium Australia.
I suspect everyone now acknowledges that the SCG really isn't needed to host a Sheffield Shield final, even in the unlikely event of the NSW team qualifying to host it. So few people turn up to watch that there are many other grounds that could accommodate it. But there will be greater than normal constraints around SCG fixturing for 2019, with the Waratahs and some RL teams (Roosters? maybe others?) using it as their primary home ground while the ground next door is out of action. I have no idea whether the AFL gets to do its fixture first and then the others fit in around them, or whether they all get to sit around a table together with a scheduling board and several rolls of coloured tape and thrash things out together.
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