Centre line (football)

Last updated October 17, 2024

The centre line refers to a set of positions on an Australian rules football field. It consists of three players: two on the wings (left and right), and one in the centre.

Australian rules football positions
B:	back pocket	full-back	back pocket
HB:	half-back flank	centre half-back	half-back flank
C:	wing	centre	wing
HF:	half-forward flank	centre half-forward	half-forward flank
F:	forward pocket	full-forward	forward pocket
Foll:	ruckman	ruck rover	rover
Int:	interchange bench	interchange bench	interchange bench
Int:	interchange bench
Coach:	coach

Wing

The two wingmen control the open spaces in the middle of the ground.^[1] They can vary in size, depending on team balance or opposition match-ups, but in general they need to be highly skilled, especially in kicking.^[2] Wingmen also require considerable pace and stamina, as they run up and down the ground linking play between defence and attack.^[2] The Victorian Football Association (VFA) abolished the wing role for many years, which sped up play and increased the average team score. However, this was not copied in other leagues.^[1]

Notable wingmen in Australian football over the years include:

Wilfred "Chicken" Smallhorn (Fitzroy, 1930-1940),^[3] Brownlow Medallist 1933
Herb Matthews (South Melbourne, 1932-1945),^[3] Brownlow Medallist 1940
Thorold Merrett (Collingwood, 1950-1960)^[3]
Stan Alves (Melbourne and North Melbourne, 1965-1979)^[3]
Dick Clay (Richmond, 1966-1976)^[3]
Keith Greig (North Melbourne, 1971-1985),^[3] Brownlow Medallist 1973, 1974 and also named on wing in AFL Team of the Century (1996)
Bryan Wood (Richmond and Essendon, 1972-1986)^[3]
Robbie Flower (Melbourne, 1973-1987)^[3]
Russell Greene (St Kilda and Hawthorn, 1974-1988)^[3]
Michael Turner (Geelong, 1974-1988)^[3]
Robert DiPierdomenico (Hawthorn, 1975-1991), Brownlow Medallist 1986^[3]
Doug Hawkins (Footscray and Fitzroy, 1978-1995)^[4]
Dennis Carroll (Sydney, 1981-1991)^[3]
Darren Millane (Collingwood, 1984-1991)^[5]
Chris Mainwaring (West Coast, 1987-1999)^[3]
Nicky Winmar (St. Kilda and Western Bulldogs, 1987-1999)^[3]
Peter Matera (West Coast, 1990-2002)^[3] Norm Smith Medallist 1992
Peter Riccardi (Geelong, 1992-2006)^[6]

Centre

The centre player usually consists of a hard-running midfielder capable of feeding outside running teammates.

Notable centres in Australian football over the years include:

Tom MacKenzie (West Torrens and North Adelaide, 1901-1913) Magarey Medallist 1902, 1905, 1906
Jock McHale (Collingwood, 1903-1920)^[3]
Edward "Carji" Greeves (Geelong, 1923-1933),^[7] inaugural winner of the Brownlow Medal in 1924
Allan Hopkins (Footscray, 1925-1934),^[7] Brownlow Medallist 1930
Allan La Fontaine (Melbourne, 1934-1945)^[7]
Les Foote (North Melbourne and St Kilda, 1941-1955)^[7]
Jack Clarke (Australian footballer, born 1933) (Essendon, 1951-1967)^[7]
Denis Marshall (Claremont and Geelong, 1958-1972)^[7]
Ian Stewart, (St Kilda and Richmond, 1963-1975),^[7] Brownlow Medallist 1965, 1966, 1971
Russell Ebert (Port Adelaide and North Melbourne, 1968-1985),^[8] Magarey Medallist 1971, 1974, 1976, 1980
Maurice Rioli (South Fremantle and Richmond, 1975-1990),^[9] Norm Smith Medallist 1982
Tony Shaw (Collingwood, 1977-1994),^[7] Norm Smith Medallist 1990
Terry Wallace (Hawthorn, Richmond and Footscray, 1978-1991)^[7]
Garry McIntosh (Norwood, 1982-1998),^[10] Magarey Medallist 1994, 1995
Greg Williams (Geelong, Sydney and Carlton, 1984-1997),^[7] Brownlow Medallist 1986, 1994
Paul Couch (Geelong, 1985-1997),^[7] Brownlow Medallist 1989
Nathan Buckley (Port Adelaide Magpies, Brisbane Bears and Collingwood, 1991-2007), Magarey Medallist 1992; Norm Smith Medallist 2002; Brownlow Medallist 2003
Michael Voss
Mark McVeigh
Mark Ricciuto
Ben Cousins
James Hird
Shane Crawford
Scott West
Jobe Watson
Chris Judd

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Perth Football Club</span> Australian rules football club

The West Perth Football Club, nicknamed the Falcons, is an Australian rules football club located in Joondalup, Western Australia. West Perth competes in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) and WAFL Women's (WAFLW) and is the oldest existing Australian rules football club in Western Australia. Originally located at Leederville Oval, the team was relocated in 1994 to Arena Joondalup, a sports complex in the northern suburbs of Perth. The team's club song is "It's a Grand Old Flag" and its traditional rivals are East Perth.

The Geelong Falcons is a youth Australian rules football representative club in the Talent League, the Victorian statewide under-18s competition in Victoria, Australia.

The Australia international rules football team is Australia's senior representative team in International rules football, a hybrid sport derived from Australian rules football and Gaelic football. The current team is solely made up of players from the Australian Football League.

In Australian rules football, the followers are the players in the following three positions: ruckman, ruck-rover, and rover. These three players are known as followers because they have traditionally been used as players that follow the ball all around the ground, as opposed to playing in a set position. In recent years, there has been a decreased emphasis on set positions in Australian football. Followers still cover more ground than any other player on the field.

In the sport of Australian rules football, the half-back line refers to the positions of the 3 players on the field that occupy the centre half-back and left and right half-back flank positions.

The 1990 AFL season was the 94th season of the Australian Football League (AFL) and the first under this name, having been known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. It was the highest level senior Australian rules football competition and administrative body in Victoria; and, as it featured clubs from New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia, it was the de facto highest level senior competition in Australia. The season featured fourteen clubs, ran from 31 March until 6 October, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top five clubs.

The 1996 AFL season was the 100th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured sixteen clubs and ran from 29 March until 28 September. It comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top eight clubs, as well as several celebrations of the league's centenary.

The 1995 AFL season was the 99th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989.

The 1986 VFL season was the 90th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 29 March until 27 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top five clubs.

The 1983 VFL season was the 87th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest-level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria.

The 1924 VFL season was the 28th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest-level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured nine clubs and ran from 26 April to 27 September, comprising a 16-match home-and-away season followed by a three-week finals series featuring the top four clubs.

The 1963 VFL season was the 67th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 20 April until 5 October, and comprised an 18-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs.

The 1942 VFL season was the 46th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria.

The Gardiner Medal was an Australian rules football award, formerly awarded to the best and fairest player in the VFL Reserves competition.

Heritage Round was an annual round of matches in the Australian Football League in which all the teams wore throwback guernseys from the past.
The first Heritage Round was in 2003 and the last was in 2007.

Ainslie Football Club is a semi-professional Australian rules football club based in Canberra, in the Australian Capital Territory.

The AFL Australian Football League is the top professional Australian rules football league in the world. The league consists of eighteen teams: nine based in the city of Melbourne, one from regional Victoria, and eight based in other Australian states. The reason for this unbalanced geographic distribution lies in the history of the league, which was based solely within Victoria from the time it was established in 1897, until the time the league expanded through the addition of clubs from interstate to the existing teams starting in the 1980s; until this expansion, the league was known as the VFL (Victorian Football League).

Ben Long is a professional Australian rules footballer playing for the Gold Coast Suns in the Australian Football League (AFL).

References

1 2 Pascoe, 1995, p. 30
1 2 Northey, John (13 April 2010). "Playing Position Wingman". Swooper Coach. Archived from the original on 31 December 2012.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Pascoe, 1995, p. 31
↑ D'Anello, Luke (21 May 2012). "Doug Hawkins is Bulldogs' favourite son". Herald Sun .
↑ "Darren Millane Trophy – clubman". 7 October 2011. Archived from the original on 9 December 2011.
↑ McNicol, Adam. "Peter Riccardi at GWSP". countryfootyscores.com. Archived from the original on 19 January 2013. Retrieved 12 August 2012.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Pascoe, 1995, p. 32
↑ "The Greatest Team Of All". portadelaidefc.com.au. Archived from the original on 19 August 2012.
↑ "Football legend Maurice Rioli dead from suspected heart attack". The Sunday Times. 25 December 2010. Archived from the original on 28 December 2010.
↑ Rucci, Michelangelo (8 August 2012). "Hail Macca the great". The Advertiser .

Bibliography

Pascoe, Robert (1995). The winter game : the complete history of Australian football. Port Melbourne: The Text Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-85561-644-1.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[Pascoe,_1995,_p._30-1] 1 2 Pascoe, 1995, p. 30

[northey-2] 1 2 Northey, John (13 April 2010). "Playing Position Wingman". Swooper Coach. Archived from the original on 31 December 2012.

[Pascoe,_1995,_p._31-3] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Pascoe, 1995, p. 31

[4] D'Anello, Luke (21 May 2012). "Doug Hawkins is Bulldogs' favourite son". Herald Sun .

[5] "Darren Millane Trophy – clubman". 7 October 2011. Archived from the original on 9 December 2011.

[6] McNicol, Adam. "Peter Riccardi at GWSP". countryfootyscores.com. Archived from the original on 19 January 2013. Retrieved 12 August 2012.

[Pascoe,_1995,_p._32-7] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Pascoe, 1995, p. 32

[8] "The Greatest Team Of All". portadelaidefc.com.au. Archived from the original on 19 August 2012.

[9] "Football legend Maurice Rioli dead from suspected heart attack". The Sunday Times. 25 December 2010. Archived from the original on 28 December 2010.

[10] Rucci, Michelangelo (8 August 2012). "Hail Macca the great". The Advertiser .

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]