2001 VFL season

2001 VFL season
Date	7 April – 23 September 2001 [1]
Teams	16
Premiers	Box Hill 1st premiership
Runners-up	Werribee 3rd runners-up result
Minor premiers	Werribee 3rd minor premiership
←  2000 2002  →

The 2001 VFL season was the 120th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), a second-tier Australian rules football competition played in the states of Victoria and Tasmania. The season featured 16 clubs and ran from 7 April to 23 September, comprising a 20-match home-and-away season followed by a four-week finals series featuring the top eight clubs. ^[2]

Box Hill won the top division premiership for the first time, defeating Werribee by 37 points in the 2001 VFL Grand Final. ^{[3] [4]} It was Box Hill's third overall senior VFA/VFL premiership, following second division premierships in 1984 and 1986. ^{[5] [6]}

League membership and affiliations

In a continuation of the VFL's amalgamation with the AFL reserves, which had begun in 2000, there were several changes to the VFL-AFL reserves affiliations in 2001. ^[7]

• Richmond affiliated with Coburg-Fitzroy. Under the affiliation, the team's nickname was changed from Lions to Tigers to match Richmond's nickname, and the partnership with Fitzroy came to an end, resulting in the team becoming known as the Coburg Tigers. The financial stability brought by the affiliation saved Coburg from extinction, as the club had been in administration since July 2000 and would have been wound up if it had not entered an AFL affiliation. ^{[8] [9]}
• Western Bulldogs, which had been jointly affiliated with Williamstown and Werribee, became fully affiliated with Werribee.
• Collingwood affiliated with Williamstown
• St Kilda affiliated with Springvale

In addition to these changes, a new team from Tasmania was admitted to the VFL; the admission was initially on a one-year trial basis, and a permanent licence was ultimately granted. Created and administered by Football Tasmania (later AFL Tasmania), the Tasmanian VFL club was designed to provide an opportunity for state level football in Tasmania to fill the void left by the collapse of the Tasmanian Statewide Football League at the end of the 2000 season. ^[9] The club came to be known as the Tasmanian Devils, and played its home games throughout Tasmania, with five games at York Park in Launceston, four games at North Hobart Oval in Hobart, and one game at Devonport Oval in Devonport in its first season. ^[10]

Consequently, there were sixteen teams in the VFL in 2001: eight clubs with VFL-AFL affiliations, three AFL reserves teams, and five stand-alone VFL clubs.

Clubs

Venues and affiliations

Club	Home venue(s)	Capacity	AFL affiliation
Bendigo	Queen Elizabeth Oval	10,000	—
Box Hill	Box Hill City Oval	10,000	Hawthorn
Melbourne Cricket Ground	97,000 [11]
Carlton	Optus Oval	35,000 [12]	Carlton
Melbourne Cricket Ground	97,000 [11]
Coburg	Coburg City Oval	15,000	Richmond
Essendon	Windy Hill	10,000	Essendon
Melbourne Cricket Ground	97,000 [11]
Frankston	Frankston Park	5,000	—
Geelong	Shell Stadium	28,000 [13]	Geelong
Melbourne Cricket Ground	97,000 [11]
Murray Kangaroos	Coburg City Oval	12,000	Kangaroos
Lavington Sports Ground	20,000
Melbourne Cricket Ground	97,000 [11]
North Ballarat	Northern Oval	11,000	—
Northern Bullants	Genis Steel Oval	5,000	—
Port Melbourne	TEAC Oval	6,000	Sydney
Sandringham	Trevor Barker Beach Oval	6,000	Melbourne
Springvale	Moorabbin Oval	8,000	St Kilda
Shepley Oval	4,000
Tasmania	Bellerive Oval	16,000	—
Devonport Oval	10,000
York Park	15,000
Werribee	Chirnside Park	8,000	Western Bulldogs
Williamstown	Williamstown Cricket Ground	6,000	Collingwood

Ladder

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	D	PF	PA	PP	Pts	Qualification
1	Werribee	20	18	2	0	2357	1360	173.3	72	Finals series
2	Box Hill (P)	20	15	5	0	2240	1521	147.3	60
3	Springvale	20	13	7	0	1921	1735	110.7	52
4	Murray Kangaroos	20	13	7	0	1997	1854	107.7	52
5	Carlton	20	12	8	0	1844	1577	116.9	48
6	Frankston	20	12	8	0	1794	1730	103.7	48
7	Coburg	20	11	9	0	1857	1791	103.7	44
8	Essendon	20	11	9	0	1797	1893	94.9	44
9	Williamstown	20	10	10	0	1908	1882	101.4	40
10	Port Melbourne	20	10	10	0	1866	1883	99.1	40
11	Sandringham	20	9	11	0	1770	1679	105.4	36
12	North Ballarat	20	8	12	0	1615	1920	84.1	32
13	Geelong	20	7	13	0	1617	1718	94.1	28
14	Northern Bullants	20	6	14	0	1805	1816	99.4	24
15	Tasmania	20	5	15	0	1458	2180	66.9	20
16	Bendigo	20	0	20	0	1320	2627	50.2	0

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

Finals series

	Qualifying and elimination finals					Semi-finals						Preliminary finals					Grand final
	1 September, Chirnside Park
	1	Werribee	17.21 (123)
	4	Murray Kangaroos	8.12 (60)			8 September, North Port Oval
						Springvale		16.12 108
	2 September, North Port Oval					Frankston		9.16 (70)				16 September, North Port Oval
	5	Carlton Reserves	12.16 (88)									Werribee		18.15 (123)
	8	Essendon Reserves	11.10 (76)									Springvale		14.17 (101)			23 September, Optus Oval
																	Werribee		7.12 (54)
	2 September, Trevor Barker Oval											15 September, North Port Oval					Box Hill		13.13 (91)
	6	Frankston	12.12 (84)									Box Hill		14.12 (96)
	7	Coburg	10.12 (72)			9 September, North Port Oval						Murray Kangaroos		12.12 (84)
						Murray Kangaroos		16.12 (108)
	1 September, North Port Oval					Carlton Reserves		13.11 (89)
	2	Box Hill	10.11 (71)
	3	Springvale	8.9 (57)

Grand Final

	2001 VFL Grand Final
Sunday 23 September (2:10 pm)	Werribee	def. by	Box Hill	Optus Oval (crowd: 11,500)	[14]
	3.3 (21) 4.5 (29) 6.6 (42) 7.12 (54)	Q1 Q2 Q3 Final	6.4 (40) 10.7 (67) 11.10 (76) 13.13 (91)	Umpires: Davis, Grund, Quigley Norm Goss Memorial Medal: John Baird (Box Hill)
Mitchell 3, Bowden, Churchill, Contessa, McMahon		Goals	O'Farrell 3, Passador 3, Pugsley 2, Rock 2, Lord, Picioane, Ries
S. Smith, for wrestling with C. Bateman in the second quarter		Reports	C. Bateman, for wrestling with S. Smith in the second quarter

Awards

• The Jim 'Frosty' Miller Medal was won for the third consecutive year by Nick Sautner (Frankston), who kicked 73 goals. ^[15]
• The J. J. Liston Trophy was jointly won by Brett Backwell (Carlton reserves) and Ezra Poyas (Coburg), who each polled 19 votes. Backwell and Poyas finished ahead of Simon Feast (Port Melbourne), who was third with 15 votes. ^[16]
• The Fothergill–Round Medal was won by Kristian DePasquale (Coburg). ^[17]
• Werribee won the reserves premiership. Werribee 17.12 (114) defeated Williamstown 12.15 (87) in the Grand Final, held as a curtain-raiser to the Seniors Grand Final on 23 September. ^[18]

Notable events

• In Round 12, Geelong 5.11 (41) trailed Port Melbourne 13.14 (92) by 51 points at three-quarter time, before kicking ten goals to one to win the game by five points, 15.13 (103) d. 14.14 (98). It was the largest three-quarter time deficit overcome in a VFA/VFL game since 1949. ^{[19] [20]}

See also

• List of VFA/VFL premiers
• Australian rules football
• Victorian Football League
• Australian Football League
• 2001 AFL season

References

1. "2001 VFL Men's Premiership Season". Australian Football. Archived from the original on 20 June 2025. Retrieved 20 June 2025.
2. "2001 Reserves". Blueseum. Archived from the original on 20 June 2025. Retrieved 20 June 2025.
3. "51st Annual General Meeting" (PDF). Box Hill Hawks. 3 December 2001. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 April 2025. Retrieved 20 June 2025.
4. Blake, Martin (5 June 2005). "Chugging along nicely". Hawk Headquarters. The Age. Archived from the original on 20 June 2025. Retrieved 20 June 2025.
5. "Hawthorn Football Club's VFL team". Hawthorn Football Club. Archived from the original on 20 June 2025. Retrieved 20 June 2025.
6. Diamond, Brent (25 September 2015). "VFL grand final: Box Hill's journey from Mustangs to Hawks". Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 20 June 2025. Retrieved 20 June 2025.
7. Fiddian, Marc (2004); The VFA; A History of the Victorian Football Association 1877–1995; p. 188
8. "116th ANNUAL REPORT". Fitzroy Football Club. 31 October 2000. Archived from the original on 16 September 2016. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
9. "2001 review". Footystats. Archived from the original on 27 June 2015. Retrieved 31 July 2016.
10. "2001 VFL Premiership season". AustralianFootball.com. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
11. Pande, Chinmaya (29 December 1999). "The magic of the MCG". Rediff. Archived from the original on 19 June 2025. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
12. "Ikon Park". Austadiums. Archived from the original on 18 September 2024. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
13. "The Last Time the Hawks were in Town". Geelong Football Club. 5 July 2024. Archived from the original on 19 June 2025. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
14. Gordon Oldham (24 September 2001). "Sport details". The Age (Sports section). Melbourne, VIC. p. 4.
15. "Frosty Miller Medallists". Fox Sports Pulse. 25 May 2016. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
16. "The 2001 review". Sporting Pulse. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
17. "Fothergill–Round Medallists". Sportingpulse. 29 October 2014. Retrieved 20 December 2014.
18. "Sport scoreboard". The Age (Sport section). Melbourne, VIC. 24 September 2001. p. 8.
19. "2001 VFL Premiership Season". AustralianFootball.com. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
20. Brendan Rhodes (8 May 2022). "VFL Rd7: Dolphins produce a Saturday night stunner". Australian Football League. Retrieved 6 June 2022.