The 2005 AFL Grand Final was an

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 ...

game contested between the

Sydney Swans The Sydney Swans are a professional Australian rules football club based in Sydney, New South Wales. The men's team competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), and the women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW). The Swans also field a Austral ...

and

West Coast Eagles The West Coast Eagles are a professional Australian rules football club based in Perth, Western Australia. The club was founded in 1986 and first competed in 1987 as one of two expansion teams in the Australian Football League (AFL), then known ...

at the

Melbourne Cricket Ground The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), also known locally as the 'G, is a sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria. Founded and managed by the Melbourne Cricket Club, it is the largest stadium in the Southern Hemisphere, the Lis ...

on 24 September 2005. It was the 109th annual

grand final Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final is a game that decides a sports league's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Synonymous with a championship game in North Ameri ...

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 ...

(formerly the Victorian Football League), staged to determine the

premiers Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier. A premier will normally be a head of governm ...

for the

2005 AFL season The 2005 AFL season was the 109th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured sixt ...

. The match, attended by 91,828 spectators, was won by Sydney by a margin of four points. It was the club's fourth VFL/AFL premiership, and its first since 1933, breaking a league-record 72-year premiership drought. , the 2005 AFL Grand Final is the highest-rating

AFL AFL may refer to: Education * Angel Foundation for Learning, a Canadian Roman Catholic charity * Ankara Science High School, a high school in Ankara, Turkey, natively referred to as ''Ankara Fen Liesi'' * Assessment for learning Military * ...

game of all time since the current OzTam measurement system was introduced in 2001. A total average of 4.449 million people watched the game on TV nationally, including 3.4 million metropolitan viewers. It is one of the most-watched television broadcasts in Australia since 2001, ranked 10th overall .

Background

This was West Coast's first appearance in a grand final since winning the

1994 The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations. In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...

premiership, whilst it was Sydney's first since losing in

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

, and the Swans had not won a premiership since

1933 Events January * January 11 – Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand. * January 17 – The United States Congress votes in favour of Philippines independen ...

(as South Melbourne). Two players from the Eagles' last premiership in 1994 were appearing in this grand final: Drew Banfield for the Eagles and Jason Ball for the Swans in his last AFL game. At the conclusion of the home-and-away season, West Coast finished second on the AFL ladder behind

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

with 17 wins and five losses. Sydney finished third with 15 wins and seven losses. They met in the qualifying final at

Subiaco Oval Subiaco Oval (; nicknamed Subi) was a sports stadium in Perth, Western Australia, located in the suburb of Subiaco, Western Australia, Subiaco. It was opened in 1908 and closed in 2017 after the completion of the new Perth Stadium in Burswood, ...

, and West Coast won by four points. A major turning point in the Swans' season came when they lost to at

Telstra Dome Docklands Stadium, known by naming rights sponsorship as Marvel Stadium, is a multi-purpose sports and entertainment stadium in the suburb of Docklands in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Construction started in October 1997 and was completed ...

in round ten, after which Swans coach Paul Roos came under heavy criticism from the entire AFL for his side's game plan. The Eagles qualified for the grand final by defeating minor premiers Adelaide in their preliminary final by 16 points. Meanwhile, Nick Davis famously rescued Sydney in their semi-final at the SCG against Geelong with four 4th-quarter goals, including one just seconds before the final siren. The Swans then overcame St Kilda in their preliminary final at the MCG after overturning a 7-point deficit going into the last quarter into a 31-point win with seven final quarter goals. In the week leading up to the grand final, West Coast's

Ben Cousins Benjamin Luke Cousins (born 30 June 1978) is a former professional Australian rules footballer and media personality who played for and in the Australian Football League (AFL). Cousins is listed by journalist Mike Sheahan as one of the fifty ...

was awarded the

Brownlow Medal The Charles Brownlow Trophy, better known as the Brownlow Medal (and informally as Charlie), is awarded to the best and fairest player in the Australian Football League (AFL) during the home-and-away season, as determined by votes cast by the f ...

. There was controversy over the fact that

Barry Hall Barry Andrew Hall (born 8 February 1977) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the St Kilda Football Club, Sydney Swans and Western Bulldogs in the Australian Football League (AFL). He is considered to be one of ...

was allowed to play, as he had escaped suspension for punching St Kilda's Matt Maguire in the preliminary final when similar incidents had drawn suspensions during the year. Hall later admitted in 2017 that he exploited a loophole in the rules, saying: "I shouldn’t have played. If rules are rules, I shouldn’t have played the Grand Final."

Match summary

West Coast opened the game shaky, with Sydney be aggressive to get the ball into their forward fifty. However, the West Coast defensive line held strong, only making Sydney kick two goals. The term ended with Sydney leading by 13 points. In the second quarter Sydney appeared just as strong, kicking three goals. West Coast however, also kicked three goals while kicking accurate. Unfortunately for Sydney they kicked for behinds then goals, kicks four. Both teams had seemingly easy goals that were missed, but the Eagles most clearly would remember theirs from the fourth quarter. With just under five minutes remaining in the match, West Coast's

Brent Staker Brent Allen Staker (born 23 May 1984) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the West Coast Eagles and in the Australian Football League (AFL). Early life Staker grew up in Broken Hill in remote country New South ...

almost cost his team the match following a

50-metre penalty In the sport of Australian rules football, the 50-metre penalty is an additional penalty applied by umpires for an infractions after a free kick or mark has already been paid. The 50-metre penalty is used in many senior competitions, including ...

to the Swans sending them out of their defensive 50 in a very costly play. With the Swans holding a five-point lead in the closing moments, Sydney's

Tadhg Kennelly Tadhg Kennelly (born 1 July 1981) is an Irish-Australian former international sportsperson turned recruiter and coach. He is most known for his top-level careers in both Gaelic football and Australian rules football being the first holder of bo ...

rushed a behind to blunt a ferocious Eagles attack. After the ensuing kick in, West Coast regained control of the ball and sent a long kick back to the half-forward line by

Dean Cox Dean Michael Cox (born 1 August 1981) is a retired Australian rules footballer and the current senior coach of the Sydney Swans in the Australian Football League (AFL). Cox played a 290-game career with the West Coast Eagles. Originally from ...

. Sydney's

Leo Barry Leo Barry (born 19 May 1977) is a retired Australian rules footballer in the Australian Football League (AFL) with the Sydney Swans. Originally from Deniliquin, New South Wales, Barry attended Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview, before being d ...

responded by taking a mark in the midst of the pack full of Eagles players (with the commentator

Stephen Quartermain Stephen William Quartermain (born 7 May 1962) is an Australian television personality, journalist and presenter. Quartermain is currently a sport presenter on ''10 News First'' in Melbourne. Early career Quartermain began his career as a cade ...

saying a sequence of words made famous through frequent replays: "Leo Barry, you star!"), denying the Eagles an opportunity to kick a game-winner on or after the final siren, thus ensuring that the Swans would win their first premiership in 72 years (when they were South Melbourne), ending the longest premiership drought in VFL/AFL history. The match has been labelled as a 'classic',

Jim Main Jim Main (12 March 1943 – 8 August 2022) was an Australian sports journalist and writer. He is known especially for his coverage of Australian rules football, especially his book ''More Than a Century of AFL Grand Finals'' (2001–2005), some ...

, ''Aussie Rules: For Dummies'' (2nd edition, 2008) p 10. with the final margin being the closest since the 1977 drawn grand final. This was the first time since the 1989 VFL Grand Final that the grand final was decided by a goal or less. Eagles player

Chris Judd Christopher Dylan Judd (born 8 September 1983) is a former professional Australian rules footballer and captain of both the West Coast Eagles and Carlton Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He is regarded as one of the grea ...

was awarded the

Norm Smith Medal The Norm Smith Medal is an Australian rules football award presented annually to the player adjudged the best on ground in the grand final of the Australian Football League (AFL). Prior to 1990, the competition was known as the Victorian Footbal ...

for being judged the best player afield, although he finished on the losing side; this is one of only four instances of a Grand Final player having won a Norm Smith Medal without being on the winning premiership team. The same teams met again in the

2006 AFL Grand Final The 2006 AFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the Sydney Swans and West Coast Eagles, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on 30 September 2006. It was the 110th annual grand final of the Austral ...

, in another close match, with the Eagles emerging victors by one point.

Norm Smith Medal

Teams

Scorecard

Match statistics

Entertainment

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2005 Afl Grand Final VFL/AFL Grand Finals Afl Grand Final, 2005 Sydney Swans West Coast Eagles