2019 Australian Football League Season
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The 2019 AFL season was the 123rd season of the
Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent professional sports, professional competition of Australian rules football. It was originally named the Victorian Football League (VFL) and was founded in 1896 as a breakaway competition ...
(AFL), the highest level senior men's
Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...
competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured eighteen clubs, ran from 21 March until 28 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a
finals series Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final examination or finals, a test given at the end of a course of study or training *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which d ...
featuring the top eight clubs. The premiership was won by the
Richmond Football Club The Richmond Football Club, nicknamed the Tigers or colloquially the Tiges, is a professional Australian rules football team competing in the Australian Football League (AFL). Founded in 1885 in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond, Victoria, Ric ...
for the twelfth time, after it defeated by 89 points in the
2019 AFL Grand Final The 2019 AFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the Richmond Football Club and Greater Western Sydney Giants at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 28 September 2019. It was the 124th annual grand final of the Austra ...
.


Rule changes

There were several alterations to the laws of the game in 2019: * Starting positions were mandated at centre bounces, with each team required to have six players inside each 50m arc – including one in each goal square – four players in the centre square and two along the wings. A team guilty of the ''6-6-6 rule'', as it became known, received one warning per game, then conceded a free kick on subsequent infractions. * At
kick-in In the sport of Australian rules football, a kick-in (sometimes known as a kick-out, and known for much of the game's history as a kick-off) is the common name for the procedure to restart the game after a behind. It involves a defender from t ...
s after behinds, the full back was no longer required to kick to himself to play on from the goal square, and the man on the mark was positioned 10m from the kick-off line instead of 5m. * The spot of any mark or free kick received within nine metres of a player's defensive goal line would be brought back to the nine-metre line, rather than remaining at the spot of the mark or free kick. * Team runners were no longer permitted to enter the playing surface except for the break in play after a goal had been kicked; water carriers were also forbidden from entering during live play. * The protocol for a 50-metre penalty was amended, allowing the player with the ball to advance to the new mark at his own pace without being interfered with by an opponent (which could be penalised by a second 50-metre penalty), and with the right to play on at any time while the 50m penalty was being measured out. Previously, measuring out a 50m penalty was done with time off. * The push-in-the-back rule was relaxed, allowing a player to place his hands on the back of his opponent to protect his position in a marking contest, provided he does not push. This removed the more stringent interpretation added in 2007 which saw a free kick to penalised any use of hands on an opponent's back in a marking contest. * The concept of ''prior opportunity'' as it applied to
holding the ball Holding the ball is an infraction in Australian rules football. The rule results in a free kick being awarded against a player who fails to correctly dispose of the football upon being tackled by an opponent, although not under all circumstance ...
was formally defined for the first time as part of a copyedit of the rule. The only change to the intent of the rule was that a ruckman who takes direct possession of the ball in a ruck contest was no longer considered to have had prior opportunity – removing a provision which had existed since 2003.


Pre-season

The pre-season began with the
2019 AFLX tournament The 2019 AFL X tournament was the second and latter of the Australian Football League (AFL) pre-season series of matches played under the laws of AFLX, a variation of Australian rules football. The tournament took place on 22 February 2019 at Marv ...
, the second and, as of 2024, latter
AFLX AFLX is a variation of Australian rules football designed in 2017 to be played on a soccer field (significantly smaller than the Australian rules oval). Unlike the full 18-a-side game (or the already established variant for rectangular field ...
event featuring AFL players. Unlike the 2018 competition, it was not contested by the clubs, but rather by four all-star teams selected by their captains: Patrick Dangerfield (captain of the ''Bolts''), Nat Fyfe (''Flyers''), Jack Riewoldt (''Rampage''), and
Eddie Betts Edward Robert Betts III (born 26 November 1986) is a former Australian rules football player who played as a forward for Carlton Football Club, Carlton and Adelaide Football Club, Adelaide in the Australian Football League between 2005 and 2021. ...
(''Deadlys'', composed entirely of Indigenous players). The tournament occurred at Marvel Stadium,
Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
on 22 February 2019 and was won by the ''Rampage''. This was followed by the pre-season series of games, known as the 2019 JLT Community Series, with teams playing two games each. The games were stand-alone, with no overall winner of the series. Each team played two games, many at suburban or regional venues, while all games were televised on
Fox Footy Fox Footy (stylised as FOX FOOTY) is an Australian rules football subscription television channel dedicated to screening Australian rules football matches and related programming. It is owned by Fox Sports Australia operated out of its Melbou ...
.


Premiership season

Notable features of the draw included: * replacing in hosting in Shanghai. *
Tony Ireland Stadium Riverway Stadium, also known as Townsville Cricket Ground, is an international standard cricket and AFL stadium in Thuringowa Central, Townsville, Queensland, Australia. The stadium is a part of the Riverway sporting and cultural complex. F ...
in
Townsville The City of Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 201,313 as of 2024, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland and Northern Australia (specifically, the parts of Australia north of ...
hosted an AFL premiership match for the first time, when played in round 13. The fixture replaced the game held in Cairns between 2011 and 2018. * hosted for the
Queen's Birthday match Queens is a borough of New York City. Queens or Queen's may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * Queens (group), a Polish musical group * "Queens" (song), a 2018 song by Saara Aalto * ''Queens'' (novel), by Stephen Pickles, 1984 * "Queens", ...
for the first time since 1999. 2019 marked the first year of games being broadcast in
4K resolution 4K resolution refers to a horizontal display resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels. Digital television and digital cinematography commonly use several different 4K resolutions. In television and consumer media, 38402160 (4K UHD) with a 16:9 asp ...
, with a total of 46 ultra-high-definition games being shown on
Foxtel NXE Australia Pty Ltd, trading as the Foxtel Group, is an Australian pay television company that operates cable television, direct-broadcast satellite, direct broadcast satellite television, and IPTV streaming services. It was formed in April ...
.


Round 1


Round 2


Round 3


Round 4


Round 5


Round 6


Round 7


Round 8


Round 9


Round 10


Round 11


Round 12


Round 13


Round 14


Round 15


Round 16


Round 17


Round 18


Round 19


Round 20


Round 21


Round 22


Round 23


Win/loss table

Bold – Home game
X – Bye
Opponent for round listed above margin


Ladder


Ladder progression

*Numbers highlighted in green indicates the team finished the round inside the top 8. *Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the team finished in first place on the ladder in that round. *Numbers highlighted in red indicates the team finished in last place on the ladder in that round. *Underlined numbers indicates the team had a bye during that round. *Subscript numbers indicate ladder position at round's end.


Positions of teams round by round


Finals series


Week one


Week two


Week three


Week four


Awards


Coleman Medal

*Larger numbers indicate number of goals scored in each round. Subscript numbers indicate total cumulative goals scored through that round. *Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the player led the
Coleman Medal The Coleman Medal is an Australian rules football award given annually to the Australian Football League (AFL) player who kicks the most Laws of Australian rules football#Scoring, goals in the Australian Football League#Premiership season, home- ...
at the end of that round. *Numbers underlined indicates the player did not play in that round.


Player milestones


Best and fairest


Club leadership


Coach changes


Club membership


References

{{Australian Football League Australian Football League seasons 2019 in Australian rules football