2007 AFL season

2007 AFL Premiership Season
Logo of the 2007 AFL Season
Teams	16
Premiers	Geelong (7th premiership)
Minor Premiers	Geelong (10th minor premiership)
AFL Cup Winner	Carlton (3rd pre-season cup win)
Matches played	185
Attendance	7,051,733 (38,117 per match)
Coleman Medallist	Jonathan Brown (Brisbane Lions)
Brownlow Medallist	Jimmy Bartel (Geelong)

The 2007 AFL Season was the 111th season of the Australian Football League, the highest-level professional Australian rules football league in Australia. The regular season commenced on 30 March 2007, and concluded with the 2007 AFL Grand Final on 29 September 2007, with Geelong defeating Port Adelaide by 119 points, the highest winning-margin in an AFL Grand Final, to claim the 2007 AFL premiership.

National Cup

Carlton Blues 2.12.7 (97) def Brisbane Lions 0.10.12 (72) at Telstra Dome in the Final in front of a crowd of 46,094.

Premiership season

Round 1 (Season Launch)

Round 2 (Easter)

Round 3 (Rivalry Round)

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Round 9 (Indigenous Round)

Round 10

Round 11

Round 12 (Split Round)

Round 13

Round 14 (Heritage Round)

Round 15

Round 16

Round 17

Round 18

Round 19

Round 20

Round 21

Round 22

Ladder

Finals Series

Qualifying and Elimination Finals

Semi finals

Preliminary Finals

Grand final

Awards

• The 2007 Brownlow Medal for the AFL's best and fairest player was awarded to Jimmy Bartel, of Geelong, who polled 29 votes.
• The Leigh Matthews Trophy as the AFL's most valuable player was awarded to Gary Ablett, Jr., of Geelong.
• The Coleman Medal was awarded to Jonathan Brown of Brisbane, who kicked 77 goals.
• The Norm Smith Medal as the player adjudged best afield in the AFL Grand Final was awarded to Steve Johnson, of Geelong.
• The AFL Rising Star award (Ron Evans Medal) was awarded to Joel Selwood, of Geelong.
• The McClelland Trophy was awarded to the Geelong for holding top position on the ladder after 22 rounds.
• The Wooden Spoon was awarded to the Richmond Football Club for coming in last place on the ladder after 22 rounds.
• Andrew McLeod from Adelaide was named the captain of the 2007 All-Australian Team.
• The AFL Mark of the Year was awarded to Michael Newton of Melbourne.
• The AFL Goal of the Year was awarded to Matthew Lloyd of Essendon.
• The AFL Army Award was awarded to Alwyn Davey of Essendon as the footballer who displayed the most courageous and/or team related act of the season.

Best and Fairests

Notable events

• On Thursday 8 February it was announced that the Seven Network (who had not broadcast AFL for five years) and Ten Network had reached an agreement to on-sell four games per round to pay-TV provider Foxtel.
• In Round 6, Geelong scored 35.12 (222) against Richmond, the highest score kicked in an AFL game since quarters were shortened from twenty-five to twenty minutes in 1994 and the first time a team has scored over 200 points since Round 22, 1995. Their winning margin of 157 points also broke the record for the same period, and they scored an all-time record 23 more goals than behinds, and an all-time record three-quarter time score of 29.9 (183). This was also Richmond's biggest loss in its 99 year history.
• In Round 8, Hawthorn and St Kilda were widely criticised for their game, which in perfect weather yielded only seven goals in the first three quarters (before opening up in the final quarter), and was described as boring by Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy.^[17]
• Round 12's game between Carlton and Hawthorn attracted 53,459 fans, breaking the record for the highest AFL crowd at Telstra Dome. In the same game, Hawthorn kicked their highest ever score against Carlton: 27.18 (180), and also achieved their greatest winning margin against Carlton, 100 points.^[18]
• Robert Harvey became just the 10th player in VFL/AFL history to reach 350 games, helping St Kilda defeat the West Coast Eagles. The win was the second time in 60 games that a Victorian Team had beaten West Coast at Subiaco Oval.^[19]
• The Round 16 game between Brisbane Lions against Carlton at The Gabba saw Jonathan Brown become the first Brisbane player to kick 10 goals in a match, booting 10.1 for the game. This surpassed Brad Hardie's (1989 Round 10 v Carlton at MC Labour Park) and Daniel Bradshaw's 2005 v Melbourne at The Gabba) record of nine goals in a match by a Brisbane player. This resulted in the sacking of Carlton coach Denis Pagan.^[20]
• The final game of the home-and-away season became particularly controversial through circumstance. The two teams, Melbourne and Carlton, each had records of 4-17, and had no chance of winning the wooden spoon. Under priority draft pick rules, this meant that whichever team won the game would lose a potential priority draft pick (which would have been the first overall selection if Carlton had it, or pick #18 if Melbourne had it). Melbourne won by five goals in a game noted for a lack of defensive pressure, while many in the crowd openly supported their teams to defeat.
• In Round 22 a total of 263 goals and 198 behinds were scored for a total of 1776 points, making the Round the fifth highest scoring Round in VFL/AFL history.
• The second semi-final between West Coast and Collingwood went into extra time after scores were level at the end of regulation. This was only the second time that extra time has been used in an AFL game. It was also the second time that these teams had drawn in a final.
• Geelong set a new record for the highest winning margin in a Grand Final against Port Adelaide, winning by 119 points.

Drugs scandal ("Guttergate")

On Friday 24 August, the Seven Network broadcast some details obtained from players' confidential medical records on its nightly news program. It allegedly purchased these details for $3000 from a woman who found them in a gutter outside a medical clinic in Melbourne. The network said that these records contained details of illicit drug-taking by players at a particular club in the AFL, including both the name of the club and the players involved.^[21]

The woman in question and a male accomplice have since been charged with "theft-by-finding" and faced Heidelberg Magistrates' Court on 6 December, 2007^[22]. They subsequently pleaded guilty and were sentenced to a 12-month good behaviour bond and ordered to pay the money they received from Channel 7 into a court fund^[23].

The AFL currently has a "three-strikes" drugs policy (for non-performance-enhancing drugs)^[24], under which only the player and the club doctor are aware of any positive tests until a "third strike" is received. After the third strike, the club is made aware of the situation and the player may face disciplinary action. This policy has faced criticism for leniency^[25] from anti-doping bodies, particularly the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)^[26], and as such has attracted much media scrutiny and public debate.

In this case, the name of the club involved was revealed by Seven on air, but not the names of the players. Before the end of the news program (at which time Seven had promised to actually reveal the names of the players), the AFL obtained a court injunction from the Supreme Court of Victoria which prevented this - and will also continue to prevent the publication of any part of the records, including the name of the club (even though it had already been released) and players involved^[27].

At first, Seven vigorously defended its broadcast and stated that it had done only for the purpose of "highlighting" the issue of drugs-in-sport. It challenged the injunction, then faced a backlash both from the AFL and the AFL players themselves. For the whole of the last round of the season, the AFL players boycotted Seven, refusing to answer any questions posed by its journalists^[28]. In one case, Seven was not invited to (and, had it still arrived, would have been actively denied entry to) an AFL Players' Association (AFLPA) press conference^[29].

Shortly after the completion of Round 22, faced with ongoing player boycotts and the possibility of a Brownlow Medal snub^[30], the Seven Network issued a statement "regretting" any harm the broadcast may have caused to the AFL, the clubs and the players, and promised not to broadcast or reveal any of the details of the medical records in future.^[31]

The AFLPA, which had previously demanded an apology from the network over the incident, said that it understood why Seven could never issue a full apology "for legal reasons" and that it would be taking the "statement of regret" as an apology instead^[32]. The player boycott has since been lifted.

The scandal has come to be known in the popular media as "Guttergate"^[33] (referring to the Watergate scandal).

Club captains

Umpires

Player changes

Debuts

Retirements

The 2007 AFL season is notable for the unusually large number of players who retired, particularly senior and "champion" players.

Sackings and delistings

Trades

Coaching changes

See also

• 2007 Australian football code crowds
• List of 2007 AFL debuts
• List of Australian Football League premiers

Notes

References

External links

• 2007 Season - AFL Tables
• Official AFL website
• FOXSPORTS Australia AFL section
• Heraldsun site
• The Age Online
• Sportal AFL
• 2007 AFL season - Finalsiren.com
• CSV file of 2007 fixture for use with Microsoft Outlook calendars