Next year's AFL pre-season competition will be the last of its kind, before expansion clubs force a revamp.

The AFL announced the fixtures for the 2010 knockout tournament on Tuesday, which includes the first senior match at Blacktown Olympic Park, the future home of the western Sydney side.

The first round will span two weekends, beginning at Subiaco on February 12, when West Coast host Essendon.

The Sydney Swans will host Carlton at Blacktown on February 20 and potentially play another match at the same venue a fortnight later, should they reach the semi-finals.

The AFL will not be counting on that, though, given the Swans' historically casual attitude towards the competition, in which they have not won a match in eight years.

The grand final will be played on March 13 at a venue yet to be determined.

It could be the last, with AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson saying the league is working with clubs to devise a new pre-season format once the Gold Coast enter the competition in 2011.

Western Sydney will join the AFL the following year.

"We've been talking with our clubs about what sort of preparation they require for the season," Anderson said.

"That's up for discussion, obviously 17 teams (in 2011) poses a challenge to the format of the competition, it can't be exactly the same."

Under the current format, clubs knocked out of the main competition play a practice match series at regional venues, an aspect the AFL wants to maintain.

One of those games in 2010 will be played in Yea in country Victoria, in support of areas devastated by this year's bushfires.

A future possibility is that the AFL scraps the knockout competition and plays just the practice match series.

"The one thing that we're really keen to preserve, no matter what the format is, is to take games to regional communities," Anderson said.

He said the Blacktown fixture was a "major step towards bringing elite AFL football to the greater west of Sydney".

The Swans have welcomed the move, given they would otherwise have been forced interstate because of the unavailability of the SCG due to cricket commitments.

"It is great to have another first class facility in Sydney which will allow us to play NAB Cup matches in the greater Sydney region," Swans chief executive Andrew Ireland said.

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