| 2011 AFL Grand Final | ||||||||||||||||
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 TheMelbourne Cricket Ground (pictured), where the 2011 AFL Grand Final was played. | ||||||||||||||||
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| Date | 1 October 2011, 2.30pm | |||||||||||||||
| Stadium | Melbourne Cricket Ground | |||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 99,537 | |||||||||||||||
| Favourite | Geelong | |||||||||||||||
| Umpires | C. Donlon,B. Rosebury,S. Ryan | |||||||||||||||
| Coin toss won by | Geelong | |||||||||||||||
| Kicked toward | Punt Road End | |||||||||||||||
| Ceremonies | ||||||||||||||||
| Pre-match entertainment | Meat Loaf | |||||||||||||||
| National anthem | Vanessa Amorosi | |||||||||||||||
| Accolades | ||||||||||||||||
| Norm Smith Medallist | Jimmy Bartel (Geelong) | |||||||||||||||
| Jock McHale Medallist | Chris Scott (Geelong) | |||||||||||||||
| Broadcast in Australia | ||||||||||||||||
| Network | Network Ten | |||||||||||||||
| Commentators | Stephen Quartermain (Host) Anthony Hudson (Commentator) Matthew Lloyd (Expert Commentator) Luke Darcy (Expert Commentator) Andrew Maher (Boundary Rider) Mark Howard (Boundary Rider) | |||||||||||||||
The2011 AFL Grand Final was anAustralian rules football game contested between theCollingwood Football Club and theGeelong Football Club, held at theMelbourne Cricket Ground on 1 October 2011. It was the 116th annualgrand final of theAustralian Football League (formerly the Victorian Football League),[1] staged to determine thepremiers for the2011 AFL season. The match, attended by 99,537 spectators, was won by Geelong by a margin of 38 points, marking the club'sninth VFL/AFL premiership victory. Geelong'sJimmy Bartel was awarded theNorm Smith Medal as the best player on the ground.
Collingwood entered the2011 season as the reigning premiers, having defeatedSt Kilda in the2010 AFL Grand Final Replay.[2] Collingwood were the best performed side of thehome and away season again, winning 14 games in a row in the latter part of the season, to finish with a record of 20–2,[3] and its second consecutiveminor premiership andMcClelland Trophy. Collingwood progressed to the grand final after two hard-fought finals matches: beatingWest Coast by 20 points in a qualifying final; then coming back from a four-goal third quarter deficit to defeatHawthorn by three points in a preliminary final.[3]
Geelong entered the season after finishing third in2010,[2] and under a new coach,Chris Scott, after dual premiership coachMark Thompson moved toEssendon.[4] Geelong won its first 13 games in 2011, before finishing with a record of 19–3 to sit second on the ladder. The Cats had comfortable finals wins, overHawthorn by 31 points andWest Coast by 48 points, to qualify for the grand final.[3]
Collingwood and Geelong met twice during the 2011 home and away season, with Geelong winning both games; these were Collingwood's only two losses for the home-and-away season. In round 8, Geelong won a close game in spite of inaccurate goalkicking, with the final score 8.17 (65) to 9.8 (62). In round 24, Geelong inflicted Collingwood's heaviest defeat for more than six years, winning 22.17 (149) to 8.5 (53) by 96 points – although as the top four positions were all decided by the end of round 23, the round 24 match was adead rubber.[3]
This grand final marked the 41st season in which Collingwood contested a VFL/AFL grand final.Note 1 The club was attempting to win its 16th VFL/AFL premiership, which would have drawn it level withCarlton andEssendon for the most premierships in league history.[5] It was Geelong's 17th grand final appearance, with the club attempting to win its ninth premiership overall. It was Geelong's fourth grand final appearance in five seasons, with the club attempting to win its third of those contests.[6] It was the first time since1998 that the premiers from the previous two seasons played in the grand final.
This match was the sixth grand final contested between Collingwood and Geelong and the first since 1953. Three of the previous encounters were won by Geelong (1925, 1937 and 1952) and two were won by Collingwood (1930 and 1953). The two clubs had met in a preliminary final in three of the previous four seasons, with Geelong winning two (2007 and 2009) and Collingwood winning one (2010), but this was the first time in the recent success of both clubs that they had met in the grand final.
When betting markets opened on the Sunday before the game, Collingwood was a slight favourite, with major bookmakerTAB Sportsbet offering $1.80 for a Collingwood victory, compared with $2.00 for a Geelong victory. However, punters backed Geelong heavily and, by Monday, Geelong had become the slight favourite; on Thursday, Sportsbet was offering $1.80 for Geelong and $2.00 for Collingwood.[7]
The match was broadcast byTen Sport onNetwork Ten. Controversially, the broadcast was transmitted only instandard definition, as the costs of live high-definition coverage was deemed excessive; the HD channel was instead used forgolf. This was considered a major step backwards, as the drawn2010 AFL Grand Final the previous year had not only been broadcast in HD but also in3D.[8][9] However, the game was later made available in high-definitionBlu-ray.[10][11][12]
The coverage included the match, pre-game report, post-match report and highlights. The pre-game and post-game reports were hosted byTim Lane andMichael Christian, and the match coverage was hosted byStephen Quartermain. The match was called by Quartermain,Anthony Hudson,Luke Darcy andMatthew Lloyd.
The match wasNetwork Ten's final broadcast of an Australian Football League match before its broadcasting TV rights deal expired at the end of 2011; however, it was not its final AFL-sanctioned broadcast overall, with the2011 International Rules Series broadcast under the same rights deal in October and November 2011.[13] It was Ten's eighth grand final broadcast. The grand final had a peak audience of over 3.9 million viewers.
Network Ten (Ten Sport) won the 2012Silver Logie award for Most Popular Sports Program—that being the 2011 AFL Grand Final.
Pre-match entertainment was provided by American singerMeat Loaf, who performed a 12½-minute medley of his best-known songs.[14] Meat Loaf's vocal performance, which was largely off-key, was widely panned by commentators;[15] it was later reported that he had been suffering health issues, including a heart attack and a hemorrhaged vocal cord, in the weeks before the grand final which affected his performance. Nevertheless, years later the performance remains widely remembered and mocked in AFL states for its poor quality.[16]
Vanessa Amorosi performed the national anthem, and her performance was also panned.[17]
Geelong won the coin toss and chose to kick to the Punt Road end in the first quarter. It had rained heavily in Melbourne over the previous few days and on the morning of the game, but it was mostly played in dry conditions, with brief periods of rain in the third quarter.[18]
Geelong scored the opening goal of the game after only eleven seconds, with Geelong winning the first centre clearance andTravis Varcoe scoring the goal. WithBrad Ottens establishing aerial supremacy in the ruck, Geelong had the better of the clearances early. When Varcoe kicked his second goal in the fourth minute of the game, Geelong led 14–0. From that point, Collingwood's backline held Geelong scoreless for fifteen minutes, and set shot goals from beyond the50-metre arc byTravis Cloke at the 12- and 19-minute marks closed the gap to 14–13. From that point, the match was goal-for-goal in the latter stages of the quarter, with the lead changing four times:Andrew Krakouer goaled for Collingwood in the 21st minute;Steve Johnson goaled for Geelong in the 22nd minute;Luke Ball for Collingwood goaled in the 24th minute; andJoel Selwood goaled for Geelong in the 26th minute. At quarter time, Geelong led by one point, 27–26.[19][20]
Collingwood opened the second quarter very strongly, kicking three goals in the first ten minutes (to Krakouer in the 2nd minute, Cloke in the 7th minute, andBen Johnson in the 9th minute), to build an 18-point lead, 45–27; this would ultimately be Collingwood's biggest lead for the match. Cloke's early dominance forced Geelong to takeHarry Taylor off him and makeTom Lonergan his new opponent, which helped the Cats stem the flow of goals.[21]Mathew Stokes goaled for Geelong in the 11th minute, andTom Hawkins and Johnson both missed opportunities to bring the margin closer; from Johnson's behind, Collingwood scored acoast-to-coast goal, with Krakouer converting from a strong contested mark, to give Collingwood a 51–35 lead at the 18th minute.[19][20] At this stage, Geelong key forwardJames Podsiadly, who had scored one behind for the match, was stretchered from the ground with a right shoulder injury after having fallen on it in a marking contest. Podsiadly wassubstituted off forMitch Duncan.[18]
For the remainder of the quarter, Geelong closed the gap on Collingwood: Steve Johnson's goal in the 23rd minute was answered by Collingwood'sSteele Sidebottom in the 24th minute. In the 28th minute, a long chain of contested play around the boundary line finished with a goal to Selwood from the goal square to narrow the margin to 9 points. Then, in the 32nd minute,Jimmy Bartel kicked a goal from afree kick, 25 metres out on the boundary line, after the Collingwood ruckmanDarren Jolly was penalised for tapping the ball out on the full from aball-up. There was no more scoring in the long second quarter (which lasted 36 minutes due to the delay for Podsiadly's injury), and Collingwood led 57–54 at half time.[19][20]
For the first part of the third quarter, it was a goal-for-goal affair, with the lead changing five times. Geelong goaled first in the 4th minute, with Hawkins soccering the ball from a broken contest in the goal square. Collingwood'sSharrod Wellingham kicked a long goal in play from 50 metres in the 7th minute, although replays indicated that the ball had shaved the inside of the goal post, and therefore it should have been awarded a behind; incidentally, this was a year before the AFL introduced goal reviews.[22] Hawkins for Geelong andLeigh Brown for Collingwood goaled from set shots in the 13th and 14th minutes, respectively. Bartel regained the lead for Geelong with a goal from a strong contested mark in the forward pocket in the 24th minute. Activated substituteMitch Duncan goaled on the run from 50 metres in the 28th minute to extend Geelong's lead to eight points, and Collingwood replied swiftly from the ensuing centre clearance, withSteele Sidebottom kicking a goal from 50 m on the run. In the 31st minute, Tom Hawkins kicked his third goal of the quarter for Geelong, another soccered goal from short range. With five goals to three in the third quarter, Geelong led 85–78 by seven points.[19][20]
Hawkins had three early opportunities to kick goals for Geelong in the 2nd, 4th and 5th minutes, all from contested marks; he missed with his first two opportunities, but he handpassed the third opportunity to Steve Johnson, who scored the goal. In the 9th minute, Varcoe was on the end of a long running play which started at full-back to kick his third goal. In the 15th minute, when Bartel goaled from a long range set-shot, the margin was out to 26 points, and a Geelong victory was no longer in doubt. Two more goals were scored by Geelong in the dying minutes—one to Steve Johnson in the 22nd minute, and one to popular captainCameron Ling in the 24th minute—to complete a 38-point victory. Geelong scored five goals to zero in the final quarter and scored the last six goals of the match. After the 10-minute mark of the second quarter, Geelong turned an 18-point deficit into a 38-point win, a 56-point turnaround.[19][20]
The influential players in the midfield were Jimmy Bartel and Joel Selwood for Geelong, whileScott Pendlebury shone for Collingwood. Collingwood midfielder and2011 Brownlow MedallistDane Swan was effectively tagged by Ling, and therefore he had a limited influence on the match. The ruck contest was well won by Geelong's tandem of Ottens andTrent West, who beat Collingwood's primary ruckmanDarren Jolly and his backup Leigh Brown.[18]
In Collingwood's forward line, Travis Cloke was influential in the first half, kicking three goals while playing against Geelong defenderHarry Taylor. A change of match-ups at half-time saw Tom Lonergan switched onto Cloke, and Cloke managed only one behind thereafter.[18]
In Geelong's forward line, Tom Hawkins was credited with one of the best matches of his career. He kicked 3.2 after half-time, and he set up another to Steve Johnson, with Collingwood defenderBen Reid unable to quell his influence. Hawkins role was particularly crucial after fellow key forward James Podsiadly was substituted out of the game through injury in the second quarter. Additionally, Steve Johnson kicked four goals despite suffering a knee injury in the preliminary final, which many speculated during the week would keep him out of the match.[18]
For the second time in three years, a goal was incorrectly awarded in the grand final for a kick which had hit the post and should have been awarded a behind:Tom Hawkins (Geelong) had been the beneficiary in the2009 AFL Grand Final, and Sharrod Wellingham (Collingwood) in 2011. These two high-profile incidents prompted the introduction of video score reviews to AFL games from 2012.[23]
| Position | Player | Club | Total votes | Vote summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st (winner) | Jimmy Bartel | Geelong | 13 | 3,1,3,3,3 |
| 2nd | Joel Selwood | Geelong | 9 | 2,2,2,2,1 |
| 3rd | Tom Hawkins | Geelong | 5 | 3,2 |
| 4th | Scott Pendlebury | Collingwood | 2 | 1,1 |
| 5th | Cameron Ling | Geelong | 1 | 1 |
TheNorm Smith Medal was won by Geelong'sJimmy Bartel, who had 26 disposals and kicked three goals. Bartel scored 13 of a possible 15 votes to win the award, including being voted best on ground by four of the five judges. Bartel became the fifth player to win aBrownlow Medal, premiership medallion and Norm Smith Medal in his career.
Joel Selwood (28 disposals, two goals) finished second with nine votes, andTom Hawkins (19 disposals, nine marks, three goals) finished third with five votes, including the other best-on-ground vote.Scott Pendlebury (two votes) andCameron Ling (one vote) were the other vote-getters.[24]
Chaired byRodney Eade, the voters and their choices are as follows:[25]
| Voter | Voter | 3 votes | 2 votes | 1 vote |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rodney Eade | Former AFL Player & Coach | Jimmy Bartel | Joel Selwood | Scott Pendlebury |
| Matt Granland | SEN | Tom Hawkins | Joel Selwood | Jimmy Bartel |
| Garry Lyon | Triple M | Jimmy Bartel | Joel Selwood | Scott Pendlebury |
| Bruce Matthews | Herald Sun | Jimmy Bartel | Joel Selwood | Cameron Ling |
| Matthew Richardson | 3AW | Jimmy Bartel | Tom Hawkins | Joel Selwood |
The premiership was the ninthVFL/AFL premiership in Geelong's history and the third premiership in five years.[26]Twelve Geelong players – Bartel, Ottens, Ling, Johnson, Selwood,Matthew Scarlett,Paul Chapman,Andrew Mackie,James Kelly,Joel Corey,David Wojcinski andCorey Enright – became the first triple-premiership players in the club's VFL/AFL history. Geelong coachChris Scott became the first man sinceAlan Joyce in1988 to win the premiership in his first year as senior coach at a club[18] and, at 35 years of age, the youngest premiership coach sinceAlex Jesaulenko in 1979.
| Grand final | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saturday, 1 October (2:30 pm) | Collingwood | def. by | Geelong |  MCG (crowd: 99,537) | Report |
| 4.2 (26) 9.3 (57) 12.6 (78) 12.9 (81) | Q1 Q2 Q3 Final | 4.3 (27) 8.6 (54) 13.7 (85) 18.11 (119) | Umpires:C. Donlon,B. Rosebury,S. Ryan Norm Smith Medal:Jimmy Bartel (Geelong) Television broadcast:Network Ten National anthem:Vanessa Amorosi | ||
| Cloke 3,Krakouer 3,Sidebottom 2,Ball,Brown,Johnson,Wellingham | Goals | Johnson 4,Bartel 3,Hawkins 3,Varcoe 3,Selwood 2,Duncan,Ling,Stokes | |||
| Pendlebury,Thomas,Sidebottom,Tarrant,Ball,Brown,Cloke | Best | Bartel,Selwood,Hawkins,Ling,Johnson,Chapman,Ottens,Varcoe | |||
| Nil | Injuries | Podsiadly (shoulder) | |||
The teams were named on Thursday, 29 September.
     Collingwood |    Geelong |
The umpiring panel for the grand final, including nine match day umpires and three emergencies, was announced on Tuesday, 27 September. Among the umpires were three grand final debutants: field umpireChris Donlon, and boundary umpires Nathan Doig and Christopher Gordon.
| Position | Umpire 1 | Umpire 2 | Umpire 3 | Umpire 4 | Emergency | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Field: | 1Chris Donlon (1) | 8Brett Rosebury (4) | 25Shaun Ryan (5) | Matt Stevic | ||
| Boundary: | Nathan Doig (1) | Mark Foster (4) | Christopher Gordon (1) | Mark Thomson (4) | Jonathon Creasey | |
| Goal: | David Dixon (6) | Luke Walker (3) | Chelsea Roffey |
Numbers in brackets represent the number of grand finals umpired; this number includes 2011, counts the2010 AFL Grand Final and Replay separately, and does not include times selected as an emergency umpire.[27][28][29]
a^ While the2020 and2021 grand finals were contested betweenRichmond andGeelong, andMelbourne and theWestern Bulldogs, these two matches were played atthe Gabba in Brisbane andOptus Stadium in Perth respectively due to separate, ongoingCOVID-19 lockdowns in Victoria which prevented these matches from being played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.[30][31][32]
