1987 VFL season

The 1987 Victorian Football League season was the 91st season of the elite Australian rules football competition. Two new clubs joined the competition in 1987, West Coast Eagles and the Brisbane Bears.

1987 VFL Premiership season
Teams	14
Premiers	Carlton (15th premiership)
Minor premiers	Carlton (16th minor premiership)
night series	Melbourne (1st night series win)
Matches played	160
Attendance	3,411,846 (21,324 per match)
Highest attendance	92,754 (Grand Final, Carlton vs. Hawthorn)
Coleman Medallist	Tony Lockett (St Kilda)
Brownlow Medallist	Tony Lockett (St Kilda) John Platten (Hawthorn)

Night Series

Melbourne defeated Essendon 8.10 (58) to 8.6 (54) in the final at Waverley Park.

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

Rounds 16 and 17

Rounds 16 and 17 were played concurrently over three weekends: five matches were played on the weekends of 11 and 18 July, and four matches were played on the weekend of 25 July. This fixturing effectively gave each team one bye during the three-week period. However, the matches are still grouped into two complete rounds rather than three partial rounds, which results in a chronological anomaly in which six teams played their Round 17 matches before their Round 16 matches.

Round 16

Round 17

Round 18

Round 19

Round 20

Round 21

Round 22

Ladder

1987 VFL ladder

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	D	PF	PA	PP	Pts
1	Carlton (P)	22	18	4	0	2599	1883	138.0	72	Finals
2	Hawthorn	22	17	5	0	2781	1891	147.1	68
3	Sydney	22	15	7	0	2846	2197	129.5	60
4	North Melbourne	22	13	8	1	2402	2417	99.4	54
5	Melbourne	22	12	10	0	2189	2026	108.0	48
6	Geelong	22	11	10	1	2355	2348	100.3	46
7	Footscray	22	11	10	1	1959	2046	95.7	46
8	West Coast	22	11	11	0	2386	2438	97.9	44
9	Essendon	22	9	12	1	2075	2318	89.5	38
10	St Kilda	22	9	13	0	2150	2369	90.8	36
11	Fitzroy	22	8	14	0	2328	2544	91.5	32
12	Collingwood	22	7	15	0	1853	2425	76.4	28
13	Brisbane Bears	22	6	16	0	2113	2666	79.3	24
14	Richmond	22	5	17	0	2199	2667	82.5	20

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

Finals

Elimination Finals

Qualifying Final

Semi finals

Preliminary Final

Grand final

Player Statistics and Awards

Leading goalkickers

	Name	Club	Gms	Gls/Bhds	Acc%	GpM
1	Tony Lockett	St Kilda	22	117 / 52	69	5.32
2	Warwick Capper	Sydney	23	103 / 57	64	4.48
3	Jason Dunstall	Hawthorn	24	94 / 58	62	3.92
4	Stephen Kernahan	Carlton	24	73 / 50	59	3.04
-	Simon Beasley	Footscray	21	73 / 47	61	3.48

Abbreviation guide: Gms=Games played in the season, Gls/Bhds=Goals and behinds kicked, Acc%=Accuracy percentage (Goals divided by Goals + Behinds multiplied by 100), GpM=Average goals per match

Brownlow Medal count

	Name	Club	Votes
1	Tony Lockett	St Kilda	20
-	John Platten	Hawthorn	20
3	Paul Meldrum	Carlton	15
-	Tony McGuinness	Footscray	15
-	Brian Royal	Footscray	15

• The Leigh Matthews Trophy was awarded to Tony Lockett of St Kilda.
• The Norm Smith Medal was awarded to David Rhys-Jones of Carlton.
• Carlton won the reserves premiership. Carlton 18.17 (125) defeated St Kilda 15.15 (105) in the Grand Final, held as a curtain-raiser to the seniors Grand Final on 26 September at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.[1]

Notable events

• This season saw the introduction of two new interstate sides: the West Coast Eagles, based in Perth, Western Australia, and the Brisbane Bears, based in Gold Coast, Queensland. They were the first new clubs to join the league since the expansion of 1925, and the first time the league would change from twelve teams since 1943. The clubs were admitted to the league in a meeting on 1 October 1986, with West Coast admitted by an 8–4 majority of the twelve clubs, and Brisbane admitted unanimously. The two new clubs each paid a $A4 million licence fee which was divided equally amongst the existing twelve clubs, many of whom were in desperate need of such a cash injection.[2]
• When the Seven Network refused to offer a significant increase on its previous deal – which the VFL thought was warranted, given the broader audience that interstate expansion would bring – the VFL sold the television rights to on-seller Broadcom, who sold them to the ABC and satellite network Sportsplay. The deals lasted one year, and Seven purchased the exclusive rights back from Broadcom in 1988 at almost double the 1986 rate.[3] FTA broadcasts, alongside the nationally aired games on ABC (and all locally broadcast games via ABV in Victoria), were split on state lines with Seven retaining broadcasts for Western Australia via TVW-7, the games were broadcast as well on SBS Television and The Prime Network (New South Wales) and on Network 10 (Queensland and South Australia).
• The Round 10 match between West Coast and Collingwood was played on the Foundation Day public holiday, which is not observed in Victoria.
• In awful conditions in Round 13, Collingwood kicked only 2.6 (18), the lowest score by any team since 1968. Brian Taylor kicked their only goals in the first few minutes of the second quarter.
• In three home games from Round 16 to Round 18, the Sydney Swans amassed the most prolific string of high scores in VFL history, scoring a total of 97.53 (635). Their individual scores were: 30.21 (201) against West Coast, winning by 130 points; 36.20 (236) against Essendon, winning by 163 points; and 31.12 (198) against Richmond, winning by 91 points.
• The VFL made a loss on the Round 17 match between Fitzroy and Brisbane Bears, which drew a meagre crowd of only 5,824 to Princes Park, despite being one of only three matches in Melbourne that weekend. The league had considered rescheduling the match as the first half of a double-header with one of the other two senior matches that weekend to reduce overall operating expenses, but contracts already in place precluded double-headers from being staged.[4]
• Melbourne ended the third longest finals drought in league history (twenty-three years or twenty-two seasons actual seasons) by finishing fifth, making the finals for the first time since 1964.
• The final round, Round 22, was one of the most dramatic and significant in VFL/AFL history. At the start of the round:
  • Carlton could secure top spot and a week's rest by winning
  • Hawthorn could finish on top if they beat Geelong and Carton lost to North
  • North could grab the double chance (third spot) from Sydney by beating Carlton if Sydney lost to Fitzroy
  • Any of Geelong, Footscray or Melbourne could finish fifth and make the finals.

As a warm-up for the round on the Friday night Richmond played the Brisbane Bears for the wooden spoon; the Bears won easily to ensure they didn't come last in their first season. The significant matches were all played on Saturday afternoon, and were all close. Geelong led by 35 points at one stage but were worn down by Hawthorn in the end, who won by 3 points; the Cats therefore missed the finals.

That meant the winner of Melbourne and Footscray would finish 5th. The Demons won by 15 points to make the finals for the first time since 1964.

Sydney beat Fitzroy by 8 points to ensure the double chance.

Carlton's new captain Stephen Kernahan kicked a goal after the siren against North to secure top spot. The week's rest may have made a difference to the eventual result of the Grand Final, which was played on a 33-degree day.

• In the Preliminary Final, Melbourne was leading by 4 points at the final siren, though Hawthorn's Gary Buckenara had a free kick 55 metres out. But Melbourne's Jim Stynes ran across the mark and incurred a 15-metre penalty, bringing Buckenara close enough to kick the winning goal after the siren.[5][6]
• The Under-19s Grand Final, in which North Melbourne 13.16 (94) defeated Richmond 13.11 (89), ended in controversy when the final siren was alleged to have been blown early. The timekeeper, who was independent of the clubs, was alleged to have blown the siren after only two minutes of time on; but there had been five goals kicked in the final quarter, which would usually have been expected to result in four or five minutes of time on. Richmond lodged a complaint against the timekeeper, but did not protest the result or seek a replay of the match.[7][8]

See also

• McIntyre "Final Five" system

References

1. "Reserves, under 19s". The Age. Melbourne, VIC. 28 September 1987. p. 80.
2. Ron Carter (2 October 1986). "Perth, Brisbane join League". The Age. Melbourne, VIC. p. 38.
3. "VFL 1987 VFL TV Rights Saga". Footyindustry. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
4. Daryl Timms (27 July 1987). "A costly game for league". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne, VIC. p. 89.
5. Saved from embarrassment by Jim Stynes, Simon Eishold the unsung villain of '87 prelim, news.com.au, September 22, 2012
6. Fox Footy viewers vote for Hawthorn vs. Melbourne from 1987 on Viewers Choice, Fox Sports, 2015
7. Greg Baum (28 September 1987). "All quiet on Tiger appeal". The Age. Melbourne, VIC. p. 85.
8. "No action on young Roos' win". The Age. Melbourne, VIC. 29 September 1987. p. 84.

• Stephen Rodgers: Every Game Ever Played VFL/AFL Results 1897-1991 3rd Edition 1992. Penguin Books Australia ISBN 0-670-90526-7.
• 1987 Season - AFL Tables