page_title: AFL Grand Final
section_title: 21st century -Towards a National team competition
hierarchical_section_title: AFL Grand Final / Game history / 21st century -Towards a National team competition
caption_attribution_description: English: Sydney Swans supporters at the 2006 AFL Grand Final
context_page_description: The AFL Grand Final is an annual Australian rules football match, traditionally held in the afternoon on the final Saturday in September at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia, to determine the Australian Football League premiers for that year. The game has become significant to Australian culture, spawning a number of traditions and surrounding activities which have grown in popularity since the interstate expansion of the Victorian Football League in the 1980s and the subsequent creation of the national AFL competition in the 1990s. The 2006 Sweeney Sports Report concluded that the AFL Grand Final has become Australia's most important sporting event, with the largest attendance, metropolitan television audience and overall interest of any annual Australian sporting event.
  The winning club of the grand final receives the AFL's premiership cup and the premiership flag. All players in the winning team receive a gold premiership medallion.
  Every club has played in the grand final, with the exception of the recent expansion club, Gold Coast and two former clubs, the short-lived University and Brisbane Bears.
context_section_description: Beginning in 2001, the Brisbane Lions won three consecutive grand finals, with its nine-point win against Collingwood in 2002 the closest of the three matches. In 2004, Port Adelaide defeated Brisbane Lions in the first grand final ever played between two non-Victorian teams. The 2005 and 2006 grand finals were played between Sydney and West Coast, with each winning one premiership by less than a goal; the 2005 match is remembered for the strong defensive mark taken by Sydney's Leo Barry in the dying seconds.
  The years 2007 to 2011 saw a dominant Geelong appear in four out of five grand finals, winning three premierships. The only match to not feature Geelong was in 2010, when Collingwood and St Kilda played the third draw in grand final history, with Collingwood winning the subsequent replay by 56 points.
  After 2011, Hawthorn established itself as a dominant force, finishing runners up to Sydney in 2012 then winning the 2013, 2014 and 2015 premierships against Fremantle, Sydney and West Coast. The 2020 AFL Grand Final will be the first to be played outside the state of Victoria, after a second wave of COVID-19 positive cases in the state forced the league to move the match elsewhere (venue to be announced).
caption: Sydney Swans supporters celebrate a goal at the 2006 AFL Grand Final
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