Dangerfield thinks AFLX will be a bolter

GEELONG Cats star Patrick Dangerfield is looking forward to picking the squad for the team he will captain in this year’s AFLX season.

Speaking at a training session for the Cats at Deakin University’s Waurn Ponds campus last week, Dangerfield said AFLX was a great concept, and the revamp – which will feature teams made of players from any AFL side – would make the short form of the sport better in 2019.

“To mix it up this year and to have different players playing with each other from different clubs is going to make it really well received, I think.”

Dangerfield will captain the Bolts, who will play against Jack Riewoldt’s Rampage, Nat Fyfe’s Flyers and Eddie Betts’ Deadly.

“The great thing about it is that there’s all these players throughout the league that you’d love to play with but don’t have the opportunity to, and this provides that platform to do it.” Dangerfield said.

“To have four different teams with players from all around the country playing with and against each other, it’s really exciting.”

He said AFLX would probably not be a precursor for the return of a State of Origin competition, as AFL teams already had many players from states other than their own.

“You almost lose that feeling of not necessarily state pride, but you just play with so many different people from different states. It’s not like when you play in South Australia, there’s just South Australians there; half the Crows are from Victoria.”

Dangerfield dismissed criticism of the AFLX competition.

“They were the same sceptics last year that complained the best players weren’t playing and they’re the same ones that are now saying it’s a terrible format,” he said.

“They’ll always complain about something; you just don’t buy into it.

“Whenever you initially try something new, there’s going to be scepticism around it, there’s always going to be a few things you need to tinker with but I think the concept itself is really promising – it’s faster, it’s that shorter format, I think it engages kids probably a little bit better than with AFL games because they go so long.”