1990 AFL season

1990 AFL premiership season
Teams	14
Premiers	Collingwood (14th premiership)
Minor premiers	Essendon (13th minor premiership)
Pre-season cup	Essendon (1st pre-season cup win)
Matches played	161
Attendance	4,086,283 (25,381 per match)
Highest attendance	98,944 (Grand Final, Collingwood v Essendon)
Coleman Medallist	John Longmire (North Melbourne)
Brownlow Medallist	Tony Liberatore (Footscray)
← 1989 1991 →

The 1990 Australian Football League season was the 94th season of the elite Australian rules football competition, and the first under the name 'Australian Football League', having switched from 'Victorian Football League' after 1989.

National Cup

Essendon defeated North Melbourne 17.10 (112) to 10.16 (76)

Premiership Season

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

Ladder

All teams played 22 games during the home and away season, for a total of 154. An additional 7 games were played during the finals series.

1990 AFL Ladder
	Team	P	W	L	D	PF	PA	%	Pts
1	Essendon	22	17	5	0	2526	1815	139.17	68
2	Collingwood (P)	22	16	6	0	2376	1825	130.19	64
3	West Coast	22	16	6	0	2274	1920	118.44	64
4	Melbourne	22	16	6	0	2339	2066	113.21	64
5	Hawthorn	22	14	8	0	2414	2002	120.58	56
6	North Melbourne	22	12	10	0	2519	2210	113.98	48
7	Footscray	22	12	10	0	2016	2031	99.26	48
8	Carlton	22	11	11	0	2277	2187	104.12	44
9	St Kilda	22	9	13	0	2328	2313	100.65	36
10	Geelong	22	8	14	0	2248	2398	93.74	32
11	Richmond	22	7	15	0	1988	2530	78.58	28
12	Fitzroy	22	7	15	0	1874	2389	78.44	28
13	Sydney	22	5	17	0	1904	2704	70.41	20
14	Brisbane Bears	22	4	18	0	1733	2426	71.43	16
Key: P = Played, W = Won, L = Lost, D = Drawn, PF = Points for, PA = Points against

Finals Series

Elimination Final

	Elimination Final
Sunday, 9 September 2:30pm	Melbourne	def.	Hawthorn	MCG (Crowd: 74,954)
	1.2 (8) 3.6 (24) 9.10 (64) 10.13 (73)	Q1 Q2 Q3 Final	2.6 (18) 4.7 (31) 5.10 (40) 8.16 (64)	Umpires: Carey, Sawers Television broadcast: Seven Network
Bennett 4 Stretch 2 Eishold, Healy, Jackson, Spalding 1		Goals	2 Brereton, Dunstall, Hall 1 Platten, Pritchard
Eishold, Stynes, Campbell, Yeats, Rohde, Newport, Healy		Best	Hall, Tuck, Mew, Pritchard

Qualifying Final

	Qualifying Final
Saturday, 8 September 2:30pm	Collingwood	drew with	West Coast	Waverley Park (Crowd: 57,546)
	3.6 (24) 7.11 (53) 10.12 (72) 13.12 (90)	Q1 Q2 Q3 Final	3.1 (19) 6.5 (41) 10.10 (70) 13.12 (90)	Umpires: Ball, Rich Television broadcast: Seven Network
Daicos 4 Barwick, Brown 3 Taylor 2 Manson 1		Goals	4 Sumich 2 Lewis, Heady, Langdon 1 Kemp, Keene, Waterman
Brown, Wright, Francis, Millane, A. Richardson, Gayfer, Daicos		Best	Lewis, Heady, Lamb, Mainwaring, Hart, Langdon, Watters

	Qualifying Final Replay
Saturday, 15 September 2:30pm	Collingwood	def.	West Coast	Waverley Park (Crowd: 53,520)
	8.1 (49) 12.6 (78) 14.9 (93) 19.12 (126)	Q1 Q2 Q3 Final	2.1 (13) 4.5 (29) 9.9 (63) 9.13 (67)	Umpires: Mitchell, Sheehan Television broadcast: Seven Network
Brown, Daicos 4 Manson , Crosisca, Francis 2 Kelly, Russell, McGuane, Christian, Millane 1		Goals	4 Sumich 2 Keene 1 Langdon, Turley, Kemp
Christian, Francis, Wright, Morwood, Brown, Gayfer, McGuane		Best	Turley, Sumich, Lamb, Keene, Worsfold, Lewis

Semi Finals

	First Semi-Final
Saturday, 22 September 2:30pm	Melbourne	def. by	West Coast	Waverley Park (Crowd: 43,458)
	2.1 (13) 2.8 (20) 8.9 (57) 15.10 (100)	Q1 Q2 Q3 Final	4.2 (26) 10.5 (65) 16.10 (106) 19.16 (130)	Umpires: Sawers, Rich Television broadcast: Seven Network
Grinter 4 Bennett, Yeats, Jackson 2 Tingay, Campbell, Spalding, Healy, Eishold 1		Goals	6 Waterman 4 Sumich 3 Jackson 2 Mainwaring 1 Lewis, Keene, Langdon, Kemp
B. Lovett, Spalding, Campbell, Eishold, Stynes, Grinter		Best	Turley, Keene, Mainwaring, Waterman, McKenna, Jackson, Lewis

	Second Semi-Final
Sunday, 23 September 2:30pm	Collingwood	def.	Essendon	MCG (Crowd: 91,555)
	4.5 (29) 7.7 (49) 12.8 (80) 17.15 (117)	Q1 Q2 Q3 Final	2.3 (15) 5.7 (37) 7.10 (52) 7.12 (54)	Umpires: Carey, Sheehan Television broadcast: Seven Network
Brown 5 Daicos, Barwick 3 Starcevich, Russell 2 Francis, Crosisca 1		Goals	3 Salmon 1 Harvey, Kickett, Vander Haar, Thompson
McGuane, Brown, Banks, Morwood, Russell, Francis, Christian		Best	Salmon, T. Daniher, Thompson, Bewick, Ezard

Preliminary Final

	Preliminary Final
Saturday, 29 September 2:30pm	Essendon	def.	West Coast	Waverley Park (Crowd: 55,813)
	4.1 (25) 11.3 (69) 13.10 (88) 18.13 (121)	Q1 Q2 Q3 Final	1.2 (8) 5.3 (33) 6.8 (44) 8.10 (58)	Umpires: Carey, Sheehan Television broadcast: Seven Network
Ezard, Harvey 3 Salmon, Madden, Vander Haar 2 Anderson, Bewick, Kickett, Long, Manning, Watson 1		Goals	3 Jackson 2 Sumich 1 Heady, Langdon, Mainwaring
Madden, T. Daniher, Anderson, Grenvold, Ezard, Hamilton, Bewick		Best	Mainwaring, Lewis, Scott, Hart, Heady, Brennan, McKenna

Grand Final

This was Collingwood's 14th VFL/AFL premiership, ending 32 years of heartbreak as the Magpies had lost each of the eight Grand Finals it had contested since it won the 1958 Grand Final (it had also drawn the 1977 VFL Grand Final then lost the replay the following week).

Team	1 Qtr	2 Qtr	3 Qtr	Final
Collingwood	2.5	8.9	11.10	13.11 (89)
Essendon	2.2	3.5	5.6	5.11 (41)

Match attendance

Total match attendance for the home-and-away season was 3,587,595 people. Total attendance for the finals series was 475,790 people.

Awards

• The Brownlow Medal was awarded to Tony Liberatore of Footscray.
• The Coleman Medal was awarded to John Longmire of North Melbourne.
• The Norm Smith Medal was awarded to Tony Shaw of Collingwood
• The Leigh Matthews Trophy was awarded to Darren Millane of Collingwood
• The Wooden Spoon was "awarded" to the Brisbane Bears
• Carlton won the reserves premiership. Carlton 14.14 (98) defeated Melbourne 11.15 (81) in the Grand Final, held as a curtain-raiser to the seniors Grand Final on 6 October at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.^[1]

Notable events

• The Victorian Football League (VFL) was renamed and re-badged (with a new logo) as the Australian Football League in 1990.
• VFL Park was re-designated as Waverley Park (although it took about two or three years for football commentators and sporting editors to relinquish the usage of the old name for the ground).
• By the AFL rules at the time, the drawn qualifying final between Collingwood and West Coast was replayed on the following weekend. This meant that minor premier Essendon was given a second consecutive bye week, giving them three weeks between games; Essendon ultimately reached the Grand Final through the Preliminary Final, but they were soundly beaten in both the Second Semi-Final and Grand Final, to which many laid partial blame upon the extended layoff. Additionally, the delay caused scheduling chaos for venues and hotels as a large number of league and corporate events related to the finals, and particularly to Grand Final week, had to be rescheduled; the extent of this was unprecedented, as the number and scale of such events had increased significantly since the last finals draw in 1977.^[2] The AFL went on to introduce the provision to play extra time in tied finals matches (except the Grand Final) in future years to prevent a repeat of this.
• The Port Adelaide Football Club from the South Australian National Football League made a bid to join the new AFL competition; the application was rejected, and a composite South Australian National Football League team, christened the "Adelaide Crows" was admitted to the AFL competition in the 1991 season.
• The Brisbane-Melbourne game in Round 5 was the 10,000th VFL/AFL match.

References

1. Russell Holmesby (7 October 1990). "Blues turn on grand display". The Sunday Sun. Melbourne, VIC. p. 37.
2. Bruce Matthews (11 September 1990). "Commission rules out grand final change". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne, VIC. p. 66.

• Stephen Rodgers: Every Game Ever Played VFL/AFL Results 1897–1991 3rd Edition 1992. Penguin Books Australia ISBN 0-670-90526-7.
• 1990 Season – AFL Tables