So, Patrick Keane was tweeting away today (@AFL_PKeane - follow along, its a great read!), posted a lot of stuff about the upcoming 2012 seasons fixture as follows:
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2012 Toyota AFL Premiership Season fixture set to be released at end of next week, Fri 28/10.

2012 NAB Cup will begin the weekend Feb 17/18 for first 9 teams with remaining 9 teams to begin weekend Feb 24/25. NAB Cup GF on Sat 17/3.

2012 Premiership Season will see 22 rounds across 23 wks. Rd22 to be played Aug 31-Sept 2.

2012 Finals Series Dates are - Week 1 - Sept 7/8/9; Week 2 - Sept 14/15; Week 3 - Sept 21/22 and Grand Final - Sept 29.

2012 Premiership Season will see 22 GAMES for each club across 23 wks. One week off for each team. Final round to be played Aug 31-Sept 2.

Rounds 11-12-13 in mid-year will see 6 matches in each of those rounds, compared to normal 9 matches, with 6 clubs havng a bye in each round

As 18-team competition now has 10 Vic-based and 8 non-Vic clubs, that means that ALL clubs will now travel interstate a minimum of 5 times.

All going along swimmingly really, until the second to last post and BAM - hits us with a 3-round multi bye!

But these are the sissy little multibyes of this year, no, we have SIX teams missing in each bye in 2012, unlike the sissy 3 teams that were missing in 2011.

Wowsers, I dunno if there will be any real way to avoid copping donuts with that many teams out, but I reckon if you can navigate it (or at least not be hurting from other injury when it rolls around), youll go a long way to securing success for the year. Heck, might even be worth moving the trading cycle back a week just to ensure that you have 2 trades a week to cash in over that period!

Anyways, let us know your thoughts!