2008 AFL Grand Final

The 2008 AFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football match contested between the Geelong Football Club and the Hawthorn Football Club, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on 27 September 2008. It was the 112th annual grand final of the Australian Football League (formerly the Victorian Football League), staged to determine the Premiers for the 2008 AFL season. The match, attended by 100,012 spectators, was won by Hawthorn by a margin of 26 points, marking that club's tenth premiership overall and first since 1991. Hawthorn's Luke Hodge was awarded the Norm Smith Medal as the best player on the ground.

Geelong, the 2007 premiers, won 21 of 22 games during the home and away season to win its second consecutive McClelland Trophy, and tied the 2000 Essendon Bombers for most wins ever in a home and away season. They were 58-point winners in their qualifying final against St Kilda, earning them a week's rest and a home preliminary final. They then defeated the Western Bulldogs by 29 points to qualify for the grand final. Leading up to the grand final, Geelong had won its past fifteen games.

Hawthorn won its first nine games of the season, and sat atop the AFL ladder at Round 11. They began to lose a few games towards the end of the season, and finished in second place with a record of 17 wins and 5 losses; full-forward Lance Franklin won the Coleman Medal with 102 goals. They convincingly beat the Western Bulldogs by 51 points in their qualifying final, which earned them a week's rest and home preliminary final, in which they beat St Kilda by 54 points. Hawthorn had won four games in a row leading into the grand final, all by more than 50 points. It was the team's first appearance in a grand final since winning the 1991 AFL Grand Final.

The two teams had met only once during the season, in a Friday night game in Round 17. Geelong was missing defending and eventual Leigh Matthews Trophy winner Gary Ablett, Jr., but defeated Hawthorn 12.16 (88) to 11.11 (77). Geelong was the warm favourite to win the grand final, with Hawthorn attracting odds of $3.05 for the win at the opening bounce.

The game was the third grand final meeting between the two teams in their long history, having previously contested in the 1963 and 1989 VFL Grand Finals. It was the first grand final contested by two Victorian-based teams since Essendon and Melbourne met in the 2000 AFL Grand Final.

It was a highly anticipated grand final, eliciting memories of the classic 1989 VFL Grand Final played between the same teams, with Geelong entering the match as the favourites to win. It was attended by 100,012 spectators, the first crowd to exceed 100,000 for a game in the VFL/AFL since the 1986 VFL Grand Final.

The 2008 decider was telecast by the Seven Network, its first grand final telecast since 2001. The network had only broadcast the match following an agreement that would see them, along with rival Network Ten (which had telecast the event between 2002 and 2007 inclusive), share the rights to the match every year, with the other network broadcasting the pre-season grand final and the Brownlow Medal presentation that year as well.

Included a live performance by Powderfinger of their hit "(Baby I've Got You) On My Mind", interspersed with a rendition of the AC/DC classic, "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)", including bagpipers. Ian Moss also performed lead guitar notes to the tune of "Up There Cazaly". The traditional grand final motorcade, which was controversially omitted from the 2007 pre-match entertainment, returned, honouring the 2008 Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees, individual award winners and retiring players with over 200 games' experience, as well as Olympic and Paralympic gold medallists. The Australian National Anthem Advance Australia Fair was performed by Amanda Harrison and Lucy Durack, stars of the hit musical Wicked.