1991 AFL season

The 1991 AFL season was the 95th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), which was known previously as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season ran from 22 March until 28 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top six clubs, an increase from the top five clubs which had contested the finals since 1972.

The season saw expansion of the league to fifteen clubs, with the admission of the newly established Adelaide Crows, based in Adelaide, South Australia. With at least one team representing each of the three major Australian rules football states, the league was now the highest level senior Australian rules football competition across Australia, as well as the top administrative body for football in Victoria.

The premiership was won by the Hawthorn Football Club for the ninth time, after defeating West Coast by 53 points in the 1991 AFL Grand Final.

Foster's Cup

Hawthorn defeated North Melbourne 14.19 (103) to 7.12 (54) in the final.

Home-and-away season

The league expanded to 15 teams with the admission of the Adelaide Crows, meaning byes were required for the first time since 1943.

Each team played 22 games for the season with two byes: seven teams had a bye in round 1, and one team had a bye in each subsequent round.

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

Round 24

Ladder

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 102.6
Source: AFL Tables

Finals series

Finals week 1

Finals week 2

Preliminary final

Grand final

Season notes

The Adelaide Football Club, nicknamed the Crows, entered the AFL competition.
The McIntyre "final five" system, which had operated from 1972 until 1990, was replaced by the first McIntyre "final six" system. This system lasted only this season, and it was replaced by the second McIntyre "final six" system in 1992.
St Kilda broke an eighteen year finals drought, making the finals for the first time since 1973.
In round 6, North Melbourne and Sydney kicked a combined 32.18 (210) in the first half. It is the only aggregate of 200 points for a half in VFL/AFL history.
In round 11, Carlton kicked its only goal through Mark Arceri 33 seconds from the end of its match with Footscray. It was the Blues' lowest score since 1904, and the closest a team has come to a goalless match since 1961.
In round 21, Essendon hosted its last senior VFL/AFL match at Windy Hill, its home venue since 1922. Essendon played its home matches at the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the remainder of the 1990s.
Jim Stynes became the first, and as of 2024 only, foreign-born winner of the highest individual award, the Brownlow Medal.
West Coast did not concede more than 100 points in any game during the home-and-away season, being the first team to do this since 1967.
In May, the AFL Commission adopted conditions to allow finals matches to be played outside Victoria for the first time, if the higher ranked team was non-Victorian and its ground managers could demonstrate there would be at least a comparable financial result to the match being played in Melbourne. The season's qualifying final between West Coast and Hawthorn, played at Subiaco Oval, became the first finals match played outside Victoria under these conditions.
The capacity of the Melbourne Cricket Ground was reduced by half during 1991 as the new Great Southern Stand was constructed in preparation for the 1992 Cricket World Cup, to be played there from February 1992. One consequence of this was that Waverley Park hosted all finals that were played in Melbourne, including the grand final for the first and only time in its history. The other was that Hawthorn's plans move its home games from Princes Park to Waverley Park were delayed by one year: Hawthorn had played five home games at Waverley Park and six at Princes Park in 1990 as part of transitional arrangements for a permanent move in 1991, but the AFL reneged on the deal when it became clear that the ground was needed for blockbuster games throughout the year: as a compromise, Hawthorn again played five home games at Waverley Park and six at Princes Park during 1991, and then moved permanently to Waverley Park in 1992.
The reserves premiership was won by Brisbane, who became the first non-Victorian team to win a VFL/AFL premiership at any grade (main: 1991 AFL reserves season).
The final under-19s premiership was won by North Melbourne. The AFL under-19s competition was shut down at the end of the season, being replaced by an under-18s competition featuring six district-based clubs in Victoria that were unaffiliated to the VFL/AFL clubs.
At the end of the season, Hawthorn captain Michael Tuck retired, having played a then-record 426 VFL/AFL matches (including seven premierships from 11 grand finals). The record stood until passed by Brent Harvey (North Melbourne) in Round 19 of 2016.