2008 AFL season

112th season of the Australian Football League (AFL)

The 2008 AFL season was the 112th 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 sixteen clubs, ran from 20 March until 27 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top eight clubs. A significant feature of the season was the celebration of the 150th anniversary since the sport of Australian rules football was first established in 1858.

The premiership was won by the Hawthorn Football Club for the tenth time, after they defeated Geelong by 26 points in the 2008 AFL Grand Final.

NAB Cup

Premiership season

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

AFL Hall of Fame Tribute Match

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

Win/loss table

Bold – Home game

Ladder

Source: AFL ladder
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) percentage; 3) number of points for.
(P) Premiers

Ladder progression

  Numbers highlighted in green indicate that the team finished the round inside the top 8.

  Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the team finished first on the ladder in that round.

  Numbers highlighted in red indicates the team finished in last place on the ladder in that round.

Source: ^{[citation needed]}

Finals series

Week one

Week two

Week three

Week four

Statistics

Leading goalkickers

^{updated after grand final}

The Coleman Medal was awarded to Lance Franklin for kicking the most goals at the end of the home and away season.

Disposals

Kicks

Handballs

Marks

Tackles

Hitouts

Awards

• The 2008 Brownlow Medal for the AFL's fairest and best player was awarded to Adam Cooney, of the Western Bulldogs, who polled 24 votes.
• The Leigh Matthews Trophy as the AFL's most valuable player was awarded to Gary Ablett, Jr., of Geelong.
• The Coleman Medal was awarded to Lance Franklin of Hawthorn, who kicked 102 goals during the home and away season.
• The Norm Smith Medal as the player adjudged best afield in the AFL Grand Final was awarded to Luke Hodge, of Hawthorn.
• The McClelland Trophy was awarded to Geelong for holding top position on the ladder after 22 rounds.^[2]
• The Wooden Spoon was obtained by Melbourne who finished the season in last place on the ladder after 22 rounds.
• Chris Judd from Carlton was named the captain of the 2008 All-Australian Team, with seven Geelong players named and nine players made their All-Australian debuts.^[3]
• The AFL Mark of the Year and Alex Jesaulenko Medal was awarded to Matthew Lloyd of Essendon for a spectacular high mark against Melbourne in round 19.^[4]
• The AFL Goal of the Year and Phil Manassa Medal was awarded to Leon Davis of Collingwood for his chase, tackle and goal against Fremantle in round 22.^[4]
• The AFL Army Award was awarded to Brett Deledio for the footballer who displays the most courageous and/or team related act of the season, for running with the flight of the ball to attempt a mark in the final minutes of Richmond's round 7 loss to St Kilda.^[5]

Coleman Medal

• Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the player led the count in that round.

Rising Star Nominees

The AFL Rising Star award for 2008 was awarded to Rhys Palmer from Fremantle.^[6]

Club Best and Fairests

Notable events

• This was the first season in which Carlton and Richmond faced off in what is now the traditional first clash of the season.

• This was the first season since 1998 in which NMFC competed as "North Melbourne" instead of "Kangaroos", following the end of their decade-long experiment with home-away-from-home venues in Sydney, Canberra and the Gold Coast.
• The Western Bulldogs came back from a 37-point deficit against St Kilda at quarter time to win the game by 38 points, a 75-point turnaround, in round 3.
• The Brisbane Lions produced its biggest ever comeback in round 4 against Port Adelaide when they were down by 47 points late in the third quarter to win by 20 points, a 67-point turnaround.
• Sydney forward Barry Hall was suspended for seven weeks, then the equal-longest suspension handed out since the tribunal was reconfigured to a points-based system in 2005, for striking West Coast defender Brent Staker with a clean punch to the head. Later in the season, Fremantle's Dean Solomon beat that record, being suspended for eight weeks after hitting Geelong's Cameron Ling in the cheekbone with an elbow.
• Melbourne won its first game for the season in round 7 against Fremantle by six points, after recovering from a 50-point half-time deficit, the second-largest half-time deficit ever overcome in VFL/AFL history.^[12] This was the second in a VFL/AFL-record string of five consecutive games which Fremantle lost after holding a three-quarter time lead.
• West Coast suffered its worst ever loss at Subiaco Oval, and worst loss anywhere since 1989, in round 13, losing to Geelong by 135 points.
• In round 13, Dustin Fletcher (in his 288th game) and his father, Ken (264 games), claimed the record of most VFL/AFL games played by a father-son combination (552 games).
• In round 16, Richmond player Joel Bowden deliberately conceded two behinds directly from the kick-in, to waste time while protecting his team's four-point lead over Essendon. This was a major motivation for the introduction of a rule from 2009 that allows the umpire to give award free kick for a deliberate rushed behind.
• With its final-round victory, Geelong matched Essendon's 2000 record of 21 wins in a home-and-away season. Ironically, Geelong also set the record for the highest average losing margin in a VFL/AFL season, with its only loss coming by 86 points against Collingwood.
• In the round 22 match between Carlton and Hawthorn, Hawthorn forward Lance Franklin became the first player since Tony Lockett in 1998 to kick 100 goals in the home-and-away Season. Franklin became the 28th player in VFL/AFL history to reach this milestone, and the first indigenous player to do so.
• In the same game, Brendan Fevola scored seven second-half goals to fall one goal short of the same milestone, becoming the first person in VFL/AFL history to finish on 99 goals for a season.
• The final game of the home and away season saw the 8th-placed St Kilda requiring a win of 90+ points over Essendon to claim 4th place going into the finals. St Kilda recorded a then-record winning margin over Essendon of 108 points which saw the Saints replace Adelaide in 4th place for the finals series.
• On Monday 1 September, Leigh Matthews announced his resignation from his senior coaching position at the Brisbane Lions. Michael Voss took up this position despite committing to West Coast for 2009.
• The second elimination final between Sydney and North Melbourne was, at the time, the lowest crowd number for a final outside Victoria with only 19,127 despite being at ANZ Stadium where Sydney had averaged 50,000 for finals.
• The Grand Final between Geelong and Hawthorn drew a crowd of 100,012, the first crowd over 100,000 people since the 1986 Grand Final.
• By losing the Grand Final after finishing with a home-and-away record of 21–1, Geelong broke the record set in 1935 and 1936 by South Melbourne (16–2) for best record by a non-premier, and the record for most wins by a non-premier held jointly by Collingwood (1973) and West Coast (1991) (both 19 wins).
• Sydney played in a controversial draw against North Melbourne at Telstra Dome in round 6; it was later revealed that Sydney had nineteen men on the field for a brief period of play before, during and after the behind that tied the scores was scored.^[13] As a direct consequence of this, the league amended the interchange laws in round 9, appointing interchange stewards to police the players and to signal to the field umpires if an infringement has occurred. Any infringement now results in a free kick being awarded.^[14]

Club leadership

Umpires

The AFL introduced an additional two boundary umpires in round 21 in order to reduce the error rate and enable the umpires to keep up with the play.^[30]

Brett Rosebury was appointed the 2008 All-Australian umpire, the first West Australian umpire to receive that honour. Controversially, however, he was not appointed to umpire the AFL Grand Final, with Scott McLaren, Michael Vozzo and Shaun Ryan selected ahead of Rosebury.^[31]

Scott McLaren umpired his 300th game,^[32] and Shane McInerney umpired his 250-game, in round 4.^[33] Experienced field umpires Martin Ellis and Matthew Head both announced their retirements during the year.^[34][35]

Coach changes

• Surprising some, Leigh Matthews announced his retirement as coach of the Brisbane Lions two days after their final game of the season in what was replaced as a move to make way for potential coaching candidate, Michael Voss.^[36]

• Despite being newly signed for two years as assistant coach of West Coast, as expected, former Brisbane Lions captain Michael Voss was appointed as coach of the Brisbane Lions, one day after Leigh Matthews resigned.^[37]

See also

• 2008 Australian football code crowds

Footnotes

1. "Carrara game moved". Perth Now. 20 December 2007. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
2. Cats demolish Eagles by 99 points Archived 15 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine
3. Eagles, Dockers picked for All Australian squad Archived 24 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine
4. "Looyd, Davis make their mark". Archived from the original on 9 October 2008. Retrieved 10 October 2008.
5. Richmond's Deledio wins 2008 Army Award Archived 9 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine
6. "Docker Rhys Palmer wins 2008 Rising Star award". PerthNow. 2 September 2008. Retrieved 16 September 2016.
7. "Club best and fairest results". Realfooty. 5 October 2008. Archived from the original on 5 October 2008. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
8. AAP (5 October 2008). "Brown top Lion". Realfooty. Archived from the original on 6 October 2008. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
9. AAP (5 October 2008). "Pavlich named Dockers' best". Realfooty. Archived from the original on 6 October 2008. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
10. Arup, Thomas (5 October 2008). "Franklin is top Hawk in year of personal and team accolades". Realfooty. Archived from the original on 7 October 2008. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
11. AAP (5 October 2008). "Fisher voted best Saint". Realfooty. Archived from the original on 8 October 2008. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
12. AFL Tables – Game Records
13. Roos returns fire on North's reaction ^{[dead link]}
14. AFL interchange rules overhauled Archived 9 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine
15. "Goodwin to captain the Crows". AdelaideNow. 12 December 2007. Retrieved 22 January 2008.
16. "Four co-captains may be enough for Lions". The Sydney Morning Herald. 12 February 2008. Archived from the original on 30 March 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2008.
17. "Judd will skipper Blues, Stevens to deputy". AFL.com.au. 19 February 2008. Archived from the original on 30 March 2008. Retrieved 19 February 2008.
18. "Each man will get his chance: Ratten". Ben Broad. 23 January 2008. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011. Retrieved 23 January 2008.
19. "Burns to captain Pies". Sebastian Hassett. 6 March 2008. Archived from the original on 30 March 2008. Retrieved 6 March 2008.
20. "Mitchell to captain Hawks". 7 October 2007. Archived from the original on 6 October 2012. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
21. "Neitz decides to stay as Demon's skipper". The Sydney Morning Herald. 17 January 2008. Archived from the original on 18 January 2008. Retrieved 1 February 2008.
22. "North leadership group adds two true Roos". Michael Tormey. 30 January 2008. Retrieved 30 January 2007.
23. "Tredrea to lead Power again". AFL. 12 March 2008. Archived from the original on 29 March 2008. Retrieved 12 March 2008.
24. "Newman ready for the challenge". AFL. 2 November 2008. Archived from the original on 28 September 2008. Retrieved 5 May 2008.
25. "Saints appoint Riewoldt sole skipper". AFL. 12 March 2008. Archived from the original on 13 March 2008. Retrieved 12 March 2008.
26. "Bolton steps up". Herald Sun. Australia. 13 February 2008. Retrieved 14 February 2008.
27. Mic Cullen (9 November 2007). "Glass to captain West Coast". Retrieved 22 January 2008.^{[dead link]}
28. "Embley loses leadership role at Eagles". The Age. Melbourne. 4 December 2007. Archived from the original on 6 January 2008. Retrieved 22 January 2008.
29. "Boyd and Morris take the lead at Bulldogs". Jennifer Witham. 22 January 2008. Retrieved 22 January 2008.^{[dead link]}
30. Matthews, Bruce (15 September 2008). "More umpires mean fewer mistakes". Herald Sun. Australia. Retrieved 24 September 2008.
31. "All-Australian umpire axed for decider". The Sydney Morning Herald. AAP. 23 September 2008. Archived from the original on 22 May 2011. Retrieved 24 September 2008.
32. "AFL umpire to officiate in 300th match". AAP. 9 April 2008. Archived from the original on 5 June 2011. Retrieved 24 September 2008.
33. "Milestones 2008". AFLUA. 20 September 2008. Archived from the original on 21 July 2008. Retrieved 24 September 2008.
34. Morrison, Joel (2 September 2008). "Ellis calls it a day". AFL.com.au. Archived from the original on 24 May 2011. Retrieved 24 September 2008.
35. Morrison, Joel (2 September 2008). "Head looks to the future". AFL.com.au. Archived from the original on 24 May 2011. Retrieved 24 September 2008.
36. Lutton, Phil; Matthews walks away from Lions^{[permanent dead link]}; Realfooty; 1 September 2008
37. AAP; Lions hand reins to Voss; Foxsports; 2 September 2008

References

• 2008 Season – AFL Tables
• 2008 AFL season – Finalsiren.com

External links

• AFL (Australian Football League)
• 2008 Interactive Fixture in Excel
• 2008 Schedule By Week as a PDF
• 2008 Schedule By Team as a PDF
• AFL Venue Information