Most observers thought Collingwood's premiership push in 2010 was given a leg-up by a draw that included eight games at the MCG to close out the home and away season.

To stay home through the dog days of July and August can't have hurt the Magpies, but it will be the reverse for the Pies in 2011 - no interstate games until round 14, then four in the space of seven weeks.

The Pies can never win when it comes to the draw. The same critics who decried their easy run into the finals in 2010, will bitch and moan about their soft start to 2011. Collingwood is a really good road side and should take this draw in its stride, but the Pies would want to chalk up as may early wins as possible, so they they're immune from any road hiccups late in the season.

The 2011 draw was more difficult than usual for the AFL (click here for the full fixture), what with having to accommodate a bye every week. The end result is 19 rounds that feature eight matches and a bye, and five rounds, with seven matches and three byes.

Complicating matters is the clash between Easter Monday and Anzac Day, which means an elongated round five that starts at the Gabba on the Thursday with Brisbane hosting St Kilda, takes in the traditional Essendon-Collingwood clash on the Monday and finishes on the Tuesday (the Anzac Day public holiday) with Hawthorn hosting Geelong at the MCG.

Round six then starts 48 hours later with a Thursday night clash at Subiaco between West Coast and Melbourne. It means that from Thursday 21 April till Sunday 1 May, every day except for two (Good Friday and the following Wednesday) will feature an AFL match.

Heaven for some, hell for others, particularly the team at the AFL Record, which will pretty much have to produce two editions simultaneously.

The bye also throws up a new stat of games played against teams coming off the bye. Geelong, Fremantle and Sydney lead this category with four such games, while Collingwood, Hawthorn, Gold Coast and the Western Bulldogs have none.

The AFL has given a nice leg-up to the start-up Gold Coast Suns, with home games at their new stadium against big-drawing Geelong, Collingwood, St Kilda, Carlton and Hawthorn. No excuses if they can't fill the joint every time.

Geelong has complained (an annual ritual this one) about not getting eight games at Skilled Stadium. Not sure we feel too badly about this given the bucketloads of cash the Cats make when they play home games at the MCG against clubs like Collingwood, Essendon and Hawthorn.

The Friday night schedule loads up on Carlton with seven (possibly eight) Friday night games, plus the Thursday night season-opener against Richmond and a Monday night game against St Kilda. The AFL and the broadcasters are clearly riding the Chris Judd/Matthew Kreuzer bus to the land of big crowds, high ratings and lots of advertising dollars.

At least all clubs except for the Coasters get a crack at Friday night including Sydney, for the first time since 2003. But North Melbourne will feel rightly aggrieved at having just the one game in prime-time.

We like the grand finalists being drawn to play each other twice, although once again, round 11 seems an awfully long time to wait for the first Collingwood-St Kilda clash. But we do get see Geelong and St Kilda meet in round one.

In terms of who wins from a footballing perspective, a lot more analysis is needed. But with the Hawks facing both Collingwood and St Kilda just once, their third favoritism for the flag might be justified.