AFL preseason games begin this week. Here's how to watch and what to look out for

Having ticked off months of gruelling fitness work, behind-the-scenes tactical alterations and intra-club hit-outs, preseason for our male AFL players is about the reach the next step.

We're not at the stage yet for the fully AFL-sanctioned preseason games — they come next week — but we do have the AFL-scheduled practice games to look forward to.

Join Sam Lane and Sharni Norder as they talk all things AFLW in a podcast that is equal parts insight, raw honesty and general madness.

The AFL says these games, which begin on Wednesday afternoon, will see «teams decide on the format of each game including number of players, number of quarters and quarter length».

But for the sake of argument, and because all of these matches will be broadcast live on Kayo Sports, we are counting this as the official start of preseason action.

And there's plenty to be on the lookout for.

Word on the grapevine is the 2021 draft class have been burning up tracks, training houses down and running on top of grounds all summer. The usual, then.

But it does sound like we can expect to see a fair few draftees in round one contention across the comp, and these praccy matches will give the wider public first exposure to them.

You can pretty safely lock in both Jason Horne-Francis and Nick Daicos for round one and should definitely find some time in your week to catch them in their North and Pies colours for the first time. These are special players you will want to be able to say you saw play in their first preseason games.

Elsewhere, round one debuts are up for grabs for Josh Sinn at Port Adelaide, Ben Hobbs at Essendon, Josh Ward at Hawthorn, Campbell Chesser at West Coast, Josh Rachele at Adelaide and Neil Erasmus at Fremantle.

Whether or not any or all of