1. League membership
    VFL Women's 

2. Ladder

3. Finals
    Qualifying and Elimination Finals  Semi Finals  Preliminary Finals  Grand Final 

4. Awards

5. Notable events

6. See also

7. References

The 2018 Victorian Football League season was the 137th season of the Victorian Football Association/Victorian Football League Australian rules football competition. The competition ran between April 2018 and September 2018. The premiership was won by the Box Hill Football Club, after it defeated Casey in the Grand Final on 23 September 2018 by 10 points.

League membership

There were several changes to the league's membership and alignments between the 2017 and 2018 seasons, with North Melbourne reserves joining the competition, Frankston rejoining, and North Ballarat departing, resulting in a total membership of 15.

The Frankston Football Club will return to the competition after a one-year hiatus. AFL Victoria had terminated the club's licence at the end of the 2016 season due to its unviable financial position, which saw it in administration owing more than $1,500,000.^[1][2][3] The club embarked on a campaign during 2017 to assure its long-term viability, which included signing up 1200 members and working to improve its relationship with the local leagues as a pathway for Mornington Peninsula footballers into state football. The club then applied for and was re-granted its VFL licence for the 2018 season.^[4]

At the end of 2017, the ten-year reserves affiliation between the AFL's North Melbourne Football Club and the VFL's Werribee Football Club came to an end. North Melbourne will enter its reserves team in the VFL seniors, the first time that team had competed in the competition. Werribee will continue to field a stand-alone senior team in the VFL.^[5] Despite this, the teams will continue to share a home ground, with all Werribee home games and most North Melbourne home games to be played at the newly upgraded Avalon Airport Oval in Werribee.^[6]

After the 2017 home-and-away season had concluded, AFL Victoria suspended North Ballarat's playing licence. The club had endured two years of off-field instability since the termination of its partial reserves affiliation with AFL club {{AFL Nor}}. This had included: multiple changes of personnel at executive and board level; the compulsory acquisition of its home ground Eureka Stadium in early 2017; and difficulties in governance associated with the club's attentions being divided between its VFL team and the North Ballarat City team it operated in the Ballarat Football League. AFL Victoria determined that the club's governance had deteriorated to the point that it no longer met the minimum requirements for a VFL licence. The club's poor on-field performances – a combined win-loss record in 2016 and 2017 of 4–32 – was also a factor. The suspension brought to an end North Ballarat's 22-year association with the VFL, which included three premierships. Although the club will not contest the 2018 season, it will have the opportunity to reapply for its licence as Frankston had done; AFL Victoria maintains an interest in maintaining an ongoing VFL presence in Ballarat, although is not necessarily committed to North Ballarat providing that presence.^[7]

Another significant change to the VFL's structure prior to 2018 was the abolition of the Development League competition, ending 90 years of VFA/VFL seconds/reserve grade football dating back to the 1920s. Under the new arrangement, VFL-listed players from all clubs will play for local affiliated suburban competitions when not playing senior football for their club – the structure which was already in place for the clubs with no Development League team. The decision was made for a number of reasons, including rising costs, difficulties with scheduling, shortages of manpower within the clubs, and to improve relationships with suburban football. The clubs fielding Development League teams generally opposed the change, concerned that the pathway between suburban or under-18s football and the VFL would be affected. In particular, the clubs involved in affiliations with AFL clubs, where most of the senior players on any given week are AFL-listed reserves players, were concerned that they would be reduced to having almost no players of their own, reducing their identity or utility as football clubs.^[8]

VFL Women's

The VFL Women's competition, now in this third season since coming under the VFL brand, will also undergo a significant change for the 2018 season, with a view towards aligning the competition more directly with the AFL Women's national competition, and with Victoria-based AFL clubs taking more direct roles in state level women's football development, either through fielding their own teams or by affiliating with existing clubs. This in turn meant a step away from the traditional Victorian Women's Football League clubs which had formed the core of the VFLW in its first two seasons.

New licenses were granted to four AFL clubs – {{AFL Car}}, {{AFL Col}}, {{AFL Ess}}, {{AFL Ric}} – who will all field club-branded women's teams in the competition. A fifth AFL club, {{AFL Stk}}, obtained a licence transferred to it from the Seaford Tigers, and the club will form a partnership with the VFL's Frankston to form a women's team called the Southern Saints. A sixth club, {{AFL Haw}}, obtained a licence from the Knox Falcons and transferred it to its senior VFL-affiliate Box Hill, then in 2018 it was rebranded to Hawthorn's brand.^[9] The VU Western Spurs, who were already affiliated with the AFL's Western Bulldogs, remained a separate entity but began co-branding with their AFL affiliate, becoming known as the Western Bulldogs and wearing the same colours from 2018. Two VFL clubs newly obtained licences for VFLW teams: Williamstown, which was granted a new licence, and the Casey Demons, to whom the Cranbourne Eagles licence was transferred. A licence was granted to the Northern Territory Football Club, which plays senior men's football in the North East Australian Football League, creating an interstate presence in the competition.^[10] Foundation clubs Diamond Creek, Eastern Devils and St Kilda Sharks all departed the revamped competition.^[11][12]

Under the revamp, the thirteen clubs in the VFL Women's competition – and their affiliates – are:

• Carlton – operated by the AFL club
• Casey – operated by the VFL club, and affiliated with AFL club {{AFL Mel}}
• Collingwood – operated by the AFL club
• Darebin – independent women's club, not affiliated with an AFL club
• Essendon – operated by the AFL club
• Geelong – operated by the AFL club
• Hawthorn – operated by the AFL club
• Melbourne University – independent women's club, affiliated with AFL club {{AFL Nor}}
• Northern Territory – operated by the NEAFL club, not affiliated with an AFL club
• Richmond – operated by the AFL club
• Southern Saints – operated by AFL club {{AFL Stk}} in partnership with VFL club Frankston
• Western Bulldogs – independent women's club (formerly VU Western Spurs), affiliated and co-branded with AFL club Western Bulldogs
• Williamstown – operated by the VFL club, not affiliated with an AFL club

Ladder

Finals

Qualifying and Elimination Finals

• The elimination final between Box Hill and Port Melbourne was decided in extra time. Box Hill 11.17 (83) was level with Port Melbourne 13.5 (83) after four quarters, and Box Hill kicked two goals during the extra time periods to win the game by eleven points.^[13]}}

Semi Finals

Preliminary Finals

Grand Final

• Box Hill won the premiership after finishing sixth on the ladder, the first occasion in VFA/VFL history that the eventual premier did not finish in one of the top four positions on the ladder.^[16]

Awards

• The J. J. Liston Trophy was won jointly by Michael Gibbons (Williamstown) and Anthony Miles (Richmond reserves), who each polled 19 votes. It was Gibbons' second Liston Trophy, having also won the award in 2016. Gibbons and Miles finished ahead of Sam Collins (Werribee) and Alex Woodward (Collingwood reserves), who finished equal-third on 16 votes apiece.^[17]
• The Frosty Miller Medal was won by Nick Larkey (North Melbourne reserves), who kicked 41 goals during the home-and-away season.^[18]
• The Fothergill-Round-Mitchell Medal was won by Josh Corbett (Werribee).^[17]
• The VFL Women's premiership was won by Hawthorn. Hawthorn 4.6 (30) defeated Geelong 2.5 (17) in the Grand Final, played as a curtain-raiser to the seniors Grand Final on 24 September at Etihad Stadium.

Notable events

• In Round 11, Sandringham 0.9 (9) lost to Williamstown 11.11 (77) in a game at Williamstown affected by torrential rain and sheets of stagnant water on the ground. It was the lowest score in Sandringham's history, and the first time a team had been held goalless in a VFA/VFL match since Northcote in 1919. Eight of Williamstown's eleven goals came in the final quarter.^[19] Three rounds later, the North Melbourne reserves 0.7 (7) were also held goalless in rain-affected match, losing to Casey 5.14 (44), for the lowest score in its brief VFL history.^[20]
• In Round 14, Coburg 12.7 (79) drew Sandringham 11.13 (79), in a match that ended in unusual circumstances. Sandringham forward Doulton Langlands had been awarded a free kick from 45 metres out just as the siren sounded, and his initial kick failed to make the distance. However, umpire Andrew Mitchell awarded a 50-metre penalty as one of the Coburg trainers ran through the mark as Langlands was taking his kick. The resulting penalty meant that Langlands retook his shot from the goal square, from which he kicked the goal and denied Coburg its first win for the season.^[21]
• In the Qualifying Final between Richmond and Williamstown, the floodlights at Swinburne Centre went out due to overheating globes with around five minutes remaining in the third quarter. The match was delayed for twenty minutes, with three-quarter time taken immediately and the remaining five minutes added to the playing time in the final quarter.^[22]
• The Fothergill-Round Medal, awarded to the most promising player younger than 23, was renamed the Fothergill-Round-Mitchell Medal from this season onwards. The medal was originally named in honour of Williamstown's Des Fothergill and Barry Round, who had each won a J. J. Liston Trophy (or its predecessor) as well as the VFL/AFL's Brownlow Medal; so the name of Box Hill's Sam Mitchell, who had achieved the same feat in the years since the award was created, was added.^[23]

See also

• List of VFA/VFL premiers
• Australian rules football
• Victorian Football League
• Australian Football League
• 2018 AFL season

References

• Maude Turner Gordon
• Maude Valérie White
• Maud Evelyn Hamilton
• Maud Fay
• Maud F.C.
• Maud FitzJohn
• Maud FitzJohn, Countess of Warwick
• Maud Forrester-Brown
• Maud Francis, Countess of Salisbury
• Maud Franklin
• Maud (given name)
• Maud Green
• Maud Hamilton
• Maud Hansson
• Maudhany
• Maud Herbert
• Maud Humphrey
• Maud Hyttenberg
• Maudie Merrie Prickett
• Maudie M. Prickett
• Maudie Prickett
• Maud, Illinois
• MAU (disambiguation)
• Maud Jean nee Congreve Franc
• Maud Johnson