1946 VFL premiership season
Essendon Football Club team, premiers
Teams	12
Premiers	Essendon 8th premiership
Minor premiers	Essendon 8th minor premiership
Brownlow Medallist	Don Cordner(Melbourne)
Des Fothergill(Collingwood)
Matches played	119
Highest	77,370
← 1945 1947 →

The1946 VFL season was the 50th season of theVictorian Football League (VFL), the highest level seniorAustralian rules football competition in Victoria.

The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 20 April until 5 October, and comprised a 19-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs. The league's thirds/under-19s competition played its inaugural season.

The premiership was won by theEssendon Football Club for the eighth time, after it defeatedMelbourne by 63 points in the1946 VFL Grand Final.

In 1946, the VFL competition consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, plus two substitute players, known as the19th man and the20th man. A player could be substituted for any reason; however, once substituted, a player could not return to the field of play under any circumstances.

Teams played each other in a home-and-away season of 19 rounds; matches 12 to 19 were the "home-and-away reverse" of matches 1 to 8.

The determination of the 1946 season's fixtures were complicated by the fact that both theMelbourne Cricket Ground and theLake Oval were still unavailable and, because of this,Melbourne shared thePunt Road Oval withRichmond as their home ground, andSouth Melbourne shared theJunction Oval withSt Kilda as their home ground. Melbourne resumed using theMelbourne Cricket Ground as its home ground in round 17.

Once the 19 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1946 VFLPremiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of thePage–McIntyre system.

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 88.5
Source:AFL Tables

• TheANFC introduced a second substitute player, known as the20th man; this meant that a team was now composed of 18 "run on" players, and two "reserves" on the bench. A player could be substituted for any reason (not just if he was injured and unable to continue). Once substituted, a player could not return to the field of play under any circumstances. As with the 19th man, the 20th man was paid a match fee only in the event that he took the field.
• The ANFC rejected a joint proposal from New South Wales and Tasmania to introduce an"order off" rule for foul play.
• The VFL introduced a newUnder-19 competition; the teams are referred to as theThird Eighteens.
• The VFL resumes theBrownlow Medal award.
• In Round 1, 33-year-old former champion full-forwardBob Pratt returned toSouth Melbourne after playing for VFA clubCoburg (1940–1941) and serving in theRoyal Australian Air Force (1942–1945). He kicked two goals before badly injuring a leg, and never played again.
• In Round 2,North Melbourne won its first ever VFL away match againstRichmond, having lost the previous 15 meetings.
• From ninth position on the ladder at the end of Round 8,Melbourne won 13 of its next 14 matches and play in the Grand Final.
• At half time in the closely contested Grand Final, a straighter-kickingMelbourne 10.4 (64) was three points in front ofEssendon 9.7 (61); in the third quarter Essendon kicked 11.8 (74) to Melbourne's 1.1 (7).

• The 1946 VFL Premiership team wasEssendon.
• The VFL'sleading goalkicker wasBill Brittingham ofEssendon with 66 goals, including 8 goals in the finals series.Des Fothergill ofCollingwood was the leading goal-kicker in the home-and-home season, with 63 goals.
• The winner of the 1946Brownlow Medal wasDon Cordner ofMelbourne with 20 votes. Cordner was the first of the only two amateur players ever to win the Brownlow Medal; the second wasFootscray'sJohn Schultz in 1960.
• Hawthorn took the "wooden spoon" in 1946.
• The seconds premiership was won byRichmond. Richmond 7.15 (57) defeatedFitzroy 7.14 (56) in the Grand Final, played as a curtain-raiser to the senior preliminary final on Saturday 28 September at theMelbourne Cricket Ground.^[1]
• The inaugural thirds premiership was won byNorth Melbourne(main:1946 VFL thirds season)

• Maplestone, M.,Flying Higher: History of the Essendon Football Club 1872–1996, Essendon Football Club, (Melbourne), 1996.ISBN 0-9591740-2-8
• Rogers, S. & Brown, A.,Every Game Ever Played: VFL/AFL Results 1897–1997 (Sixth Edition), Viking Books, (Ringwood), 1998.ISBN 0-670-90809-6
• Ross, J. (ed),100 Years of Australian Football 1897–1996: The Complete Story of the AFL, All the Big Stories, All the Great Pictures, All the Champions, Every AFL Season Reported, Viking, (Ringwood), 1996.ISBN 0-670-86814-0

• 1946 VFL season at AFL Tables
• 1946 VFL season at Australian Football

• Australian Football League seasons
• 1946 in Australian rules football

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