1981 VFL season

1981 VFL Premiership season
Teams	12
Premiers	Carlton (13th premiership)
Minor premiers	Carlton (15th minor premiership)
Night series	Essendon (1st Night series win)
Matches played	138
Attendance	3,830,231 (27,755 per match)
Highest attendance	112,964
Coleman Medallist	Michael Roach (Richmond)
Brownlow Medallist	Bernie Quinlan (Fitzroy) Barry Round (South Melbourne)
← 1980 1982 →

The 1981 Victorian Football League season was the 85th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.

Night Series

Essendon defeated Carlton 9.11 (65) to 6.5 (41) in the Final.

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

Finals

Elimination Final

Qualifying Final

Semi Finals

Preliminary Final

Grand final

Carlton defeated Collingwood 12.20 (92) to 10.12 (72), in front of a crowd of 112,964 people. (For an explanation of scoring see Australian rules football).

Ladder

1981 VFL Ladder
	TEAM	P	W	L	D	PF	PA	%	PTS
1	Carlton (P)	22	17	5	0	2303	1768	130.26	68
2	Collingwood	22	17	5	0	2399	1957	122.59	68
3	Geelong	22	16	6	0	2224	1714	129.75	64
4	Essendon	22	16	6	0	2323	1821	127.57	64
5	Fitzroy	22	14	8	0	2413	2152	112.13	56
6	Hawthorn	22	13	9	0	2313	2114	109.41	52
7	Richmond	22	13	9	0	2323	2207	105.26	52
8	North Melbourne	22	10	12	0	2386	2293	104.06	40
9	South Melbourne	22	8	14	0	2165	2522	85.84	32
10	St Kilda	22	5	17	0	1930	2266	85.17	20
11	Footscray	22	2	20	0	1764	2680	65.82	8
12	Melbourne	22	1	21	0	1824	2873	63.49	4
Key: P = Played, W = Won, L = Lost, D = Drawn, PF = Points for, PA = Points against

See also

• McIntyre "Final Five" system

Notes

• The leading goalkicker was Michael Roach of Richmond with 86 goals
• The Brownlow Medal was shared by Bernie Quinlan and Barry Round
• The reserves premiership was won by Geelong for the second consecutive season. Geelong 21.14 (140) defeated Essendon 18.6 (114) in the Grand Final, held as a curtain-raiser to the seniors Grand Final on 26 September.^[1]

Notable events

• In the 1980/81 offseason, the East Perth Football Club from the West Australian Football League made a unilateral bid to join the VFL, potentially as early as 1983. East Perth's vision was for two WAFL clubs to join the league, as part of a transition to a national competition, and to limit the drain of talent from and provide an opportunity to play the highest level of football in Western Australia. The application was rejected.^[2][3]
• A protest by Richmond against the eligibility of defender Doug Cox to play for St. Kilda led to the Saints temporarily losing the points for their first two wins after Round 8. They were reinstated after Round 17 due to changes in the relevant rules, but a fine of $5000 remained.
• On 27 May, South Melbourne was fined $20,000 for poaching Stephen Allender from Carlton. Although Allender lived in South Melbourne's zone and was playing for VFA club Port Melbourne when recruited, he was residentially tied to Carlton and would remain as such until November 1983, because he had lived in Carlton's zone until February 1979. Carlton ended up granting him a clearance to South Melbourne, but South Melbourne was deemed to have broken the league's poaching laws by having "negotiated with an agent acting for a Carlton player".^[4]
• In Round 11, Kevin Bartlett became the first to play 350 VFL games, after having broken John Rantall's record for most games played during 1980.
• Carlton's Grand Final full-back, Scott Howell, was a member of the only three-generation set of AFL/VFL Grand Final players. His father Jack E. “Chooka” Howell had played for Carlton in the 1947 Grand Final against Essendon. His grandfather, Jack P. "Chooka" Howell, had played in the 1918 Grand Final for South Melbourne against Collingwood.
• Malcolm Blight (North Melbourne) and Alex Jesaulenko (St Kilda) became the final ever playing coaches in VFL/AFL history. Jesaulenko retired as player after Round 8,^[5] becoming the last captain-coach;^[6] Blight was sacked as coach after Round 16, making him the last person ever to be a playing coach of a club.^[7] (Blight was not captain during his time as playing coach.^[8]) Playing coaches have since been prohibited under salary cap regulations instituted in 1987.
• The State Government granted the VFL once-off permission to trial two Sunday matches in Victoria during the season; it was the first time the VFL had been granted this permission since the once-off Sunday match in 1970 which coincided with a royal visit. Under the conditions of the trial, alcohol was not allowed to be sold at or brought to the games, and the games could not be televised.^[9] The two matches were Essendon vs Collingwood in Round 18, and South Melbourne vs Carlton in Round 19.
• On 7 August, the VFL's entire senior umpiring panel resigned over a contract dispute, due to the VFL's refusal to commit to negotiating a collective agreement with the Umpires' Association, rather than individual agreements with each umpire. The VFL hastily arranged for Round 19's matches to be umpired by a team of junior umpires, all aged between 18 and 22, from the state's minor leagues; both the junior umpires' association and the VFL umpires' association gave their approval for the juniors to serve as strikebreakers.^[10] The dispute was resolved the following week, and the senior umpires returned for Round 20.^[11]
• In Round 22, South Melbourne played its last senior VFL match at the Lake Oval (also known then as Lakeside Oval). The team relocated to Sydney in 1982 and eventually became known as the Sydney Swans.
• On the way to VFL Park for the Preliminary Final, the Geelong team bus failed to pick up Gary Sidebottom. Apparently, due to a breakdown in communications, no Geelong officials had told Sidebottom that he was going to play, so believing that had not been chosen, Sidebottom was not at his usual stop when the bus passed.^[12]
• The Grand Final was the last match played with the old MCG scoreboard, which was given to Manuka Oval in 1982 after the MCG installed a new colour video scoreboard. The old scoreboard still resides at Manuka Oval today.^[13]

References

• Stephen Rogers and Ashley Brown (1998). Every Game Ever Played. 6th ed. Victoria: Penguin Books.

1. "Grand final details". The Age. Melbourne, VIC. 28 September 1981. p. 38.
2. Simunovich, Peter (16 October 1980). "13 teams? East Perth wants to join VFL". The Sun News-Pictorial (Final ed.). Melbourne, VIC. p. 84.
3. Simunovich, Peter (30 October 1980). "Record finals a help". The Sun News-Pictorial (Final ed.). Melbourne, VIC. p. 71.
4. Ron Carter (28 May 1981). "South is fined $20,000". The Age. Melbourne, VIC. p. 30.
5. "AFL Tables - St Kilda v North Melbourne - 16-May-1981 - Match Stats". AFL Tables. 1981-05-16. Retrieved 2012-08-15.
6. "AFL Tables - Alex Jesaulenko - Statistics". AFL Tables. 1945-08-02. Retrieved 2012-08-15.
7. "AFL Tables - Fitzroy v North Melbourne - 18-Jul-1981 - Match Stats". AFL Tables. 1981-07-18. Retrieved 2012-08-15.
8. "Malcolm Blight - Past Players - Official AFL Website of the North Melbourne Football Club". Kangaroos.com.au. Retrieved 2012-08-15.
9. Mark Brolly; Geoff Slattery (6 May 1981). "Sunday football is here to stay". The Age. Melbourne, VIC.
10. Ron Carter; Neil Mitchell (8 August 1981). "Juniors to umpire matches". The Age. Melbourne, VIC. p. 40.
11. Ron Carter (13 August 1981). "Umpires back with a winning score". The Age. Melbourne, VIC. p. 28.
12. Atkinson, Graeme (1989). 3AW Book of Footy Records. South Melbourne,: Magistra Publishing Company Pty Ltd. p. 278. ISBN 1863210091.
13. "AFL Grounds". Whirlpool.net.au. 1997-08-30. Retrieved 2012-08-15.