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2021 AFL Grand Final
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2021 AFL Grand Final
The 2021 AFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football match contested between Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs at Optus Stadium in Perth, Western Australia, on Saturday 25 September 2021. It was the 126th annual grand final of the Australian Football League (AFL), staged to determine the premiers of the 2021 AFL season.
The match was played at Optus Stadium in Perth because an ongoing COVID-19 lockdown prevented the match from being played with spectators at its contracted ground, the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Victoria. It was the first grand final played in Perth and the second consecutive grand final to be played outside Victoria. The event set a new attendance record for Australian rules football in Western Australia.
Melbourne won the match by a 74-point margin, defeating the Western Bulldogs 21.14 (140) to 10.6 (66). Christian Petracca won the Norm Smith Medal. The win was Melbourne's first premiership since 1964.
For the second consecutive season, the COVID-19 pandemic caused alterations to the grand final scheduling. As the 2021 AFL finals series approached, the state of Victoria was under lockdown restrictions that made mass gatherings at stadiums impossible; the Victorian lockdown had commenced on 6 August, and case numbers continued to rise through August, resulting in repeated extensions of the lockdown. Although the league had been playing matches behind closed doors in Victoria right up to the end of the home-and-away season, it was committed to playing the finals and grand final in front of a crowd. Throughout August, contingency arrangements for the 2021 Grand Final were explored.
On 16 August, the league brought the finals one week forward, dropping the conventional pre-finals bye from the fixture; this provided flexibility for a number of COVID-impacted finals scenarios, and in particular allowed enough time for a mid-finals bye which would allow clubs to serve Western Australia's quarantine requirements without impacting the grand final date.
While the Melbourne Cricket Ground remained the default host of the game if it was possible, the State Governments of Western Australia and South Australia put forward pitches to host the game at Optus Stadium or Adelaide Oval, respectively. The Queensland Government kept the Gabba available, but it made no active pitch to host the game. On 25 August, Optus Stadium was officially announced as the standby venue for the match, in the event that the Melbourne Cricket Ground was not capable of hosting a crowd larger than Optus Stadium's 60,000-seat capacity. The reasoning given for the selection of Optus Stadium over Adelaide Oval was the restricted capacity of the latter with the South Australian Government only permitting 30,000 spectators for the match. The 'Dreamtime Game' held in Round 12 also helped the Western Australian Government's pitch, with 55,656 spectators attending the fixture that featured two Victorian clubs, Essendon and Richmond. On 31 August, shortly after Victoria's lockdown was extended into October, the switch of the venue to Optus Stadium was officially confirmed; the originally fixtured date of 25 September was confirmed, with the mid-finals bye week scheduled for the week between the preliminary finals and grand final. No back-up venue to Optus Stadium was announced, with the league intending to play the match one week later in Perth should local COVID-19 cases have resulted in a lockdown during grand final week.
The change of venue required the permission of the Victorian Government and Melbourne Cricket Club, which was contracted to host the grand final until 2058; this was obtained, in exchange for the long-term contract at the Melbourne Cricket Ground being extended by one year to 2059, eight additional home-and-away matches scheduled for the ground between 2022 and 2026, four additional AFLW matches per season scheduled for regional Victoria between 2022 and 2024, and Victoria to host the 2022 and 2023 AFL drafts.
The start time for the game was 5:15 pm AWST / 7:15 pm AEST, making it the first grand final played in the local twilight timeslot and second consecutive grand final in the east-coast night timeslot. The league opted for this over the traditional and originally scheduled start time of 2:30 pm AEST because this would have resulted in an impractically early local start time of 12:30 pm AWST.
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2021 AFL Grand Final
The 2021 AFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football match contested between Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs at Optus Stadium in Perth, Western Australia, on Saturday 25 September 2021. It was the 126th annual grand final of the Australian Football League (AFL), staged to determine the premiers of the 2021 AFL season.
The match was played at Optus Stadium in Perth because an ongoing COVID-19 lockdown prevented the match from being played with spectators at its contracted ground, the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Victoria. It was the first grand final played in Perth and the second consecutive grand final to be played outside Victoria. The event set a new attendance record for Australian rules football in Western Australia.
Melbourne won the match by a 74-point margin, defeating the Western Bulldogs 21.14 (140) to 10.6 (66). Christian Petracca won the Norm Smith Medal. The win was Melbourne's first premiership since 1964.
For the second consecutive season, the COVID-19 pandemic caused alterations to the grand final scheduling. As the 2021 AFL finals series approached, the state of Victoria was under lockdown restrictions that made mass gatherings at stadiums impossible; the Victorian lockdown had commenced on 6 August, and case numbers continued to rise through August, resulting in repeated extensions of the lockdown. Although the league had been playing matches behind closed doors in Victoria right up to the end of the home-and-away season, it was committed to playing the finals and grand final in front of a crowd. Throughout August, contingency arrangements for the 2021 Grand Final were explored.
On 16 August, the league brought the finals one week forward, dropping the conventional pre-finals bye from the fixture; this provided flexibility for a number of COVID-impacted finals scenarios, and in particular allowed enough time for a mid-finals bye which would allow clubs to serve Western Australia's quarantine requirements without impacting the grand final date.
While the Melbourne Cricket Ground remained the default host of the game if it was possible, the State Governments of Western Australia and South Australia put forward pitches to host the game at Optus Stadium or Adelaide Oval, respectively. The Queensland Government kept the Gabba available, but it made no active pitch to host the game. On 25 August, Optus Stadium was officially announced as the standby venue for the match, in the event that the Melbourne Cricket Ground was not capable of hosting a crowd larger than Optus Stadium's 60,000-seat capacity. The reasoning given for the selection of Optus Stadium over Adelaide Oval was the restricted capacity of the latter with the South Australian Government only permitting 30,000 spectators for the match. The 'Dreamtime Game' held in Round 12 also helped the Western Australian Government's pitch, with 55,656 spectators attending the fixture that featured two Victorian clubs, Essendon and Richmond. On 31 August, shortly after Victoria's lockdown was extended into October, the switch of the venue to Optus Stadium was officially confirmed; the originally fixtured date of 25 September was confirmed, with the mid-finals bye week scheduled for the week between the preliminary finals and grand final. No back-up venue to Optus Stadium was announced, with the league intending to play the match one week later in Perth should local COVID-19 cases have resulted in a lockdown during grand final week.
The change of venue required the permission of the Victorian Government and Melbourne Cricket Club, which was contracted to host the grand final until 2058; this was obtained, in exchange for the long-term contract at the Melbourne Cricket Ground being extended by one year to 2059, eight additional home-and-away matches scheduled for the ground between 2022 and 2026, four additional AFLW matches per season scheduled for regional Victoria between 2022 and 2024, and Victoria to host the 2022 and 2023 AFL drafts.
The start time for the game was 5:15 pm AWST / 7:15 pm AEST, making it the first grand final played in the local twilight timeslot and second consecutive grand final in the east-coast night timeslot. The league opted for this over the traditional and originally scheduled start time of 2:30 pm AEST because this would have resulted in an impractically early local start time of 12:30 pm AWST.
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