Grand final
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For expanded information on the Australian Football League Grand Final, see AFL Grand Final.
- For expanded information on the National Rugby League Grand Final, see NRL Grand Final.
A Grand Final is a predominantly Australian sporting term used to describe a final that decides a league champion. Different terms, such as Super Bowl and Championship Game, are used to describe similar events in other sports around the world.
Notable competitions which play a Grand Final include the Australian Football League, the National Rugby League, the English rugby league, the A-League, the Women's National Basketball League, and the Commonwealth Bank Trophy.
For the sport of standardbred harness racing it refers to the final horse race in the Inter Dominion series between Australia and New Zealand.
[edit] History
The use of the term "grand" to describe a sporting event in Australia dates back to a cricket match in Sydney in 1862. The origin of the actual term "grand final" are slightly ambiguous and dates back to the period around World War I.
Possibly the first Grand Finals of any kind occurred in the sport of Australian rules football in the South Australian Football Association (SAFA, now SANFL), on October 7, 1889. At that time, premierships were decided simply upon end-of-season ladder placings, but the game was necessitated when Norwood and Port Adelaide finished equal on wins and goals. Norwood won the game 7.4 (46) to 5.9 (39).
The following years saw two more Grand Finals necessitated by ties at the top of the ladder. In 1894, Norwood played South Adelaide; the game was drawn, leading to the first of only five Grand Final Replays in senior Australian football history. Then, in 1896, in the Victorian Football Association, the Collingwood and South Melbourne Football Clubs gave Victoria its first Grand Final, won by Collingwood 6.9 (45) to 5.10 (40).
In 1897, when eight teams broke away from the VFA to form the VFL, the concept of finals football was high on the agenda, with teams buoyed by the success and attendances of the 1896 Grand Final. Over the following ten years, all top-level Australian football leagues had adopted a finals structure.
In rugby league, the New South Wales Rugby League competition commenced in 1908, also utilising a finals system. A satisfactory method was not settled upon, however, and they were discontinued in favour of a first-past-the-post system. During this time, post-season games were only played as tie breakers. But in 1926, finals were re-implemented, as in the previous season Souths had secured the title with a number of games to be played, and spectator interest suffered as a result.
Due to the various finals systems employed in the Victorian Football League, New South Wales Rugby League and other competitions, a "grand" final to decide the premier team was not always required. However, in 1931 the VFL adopted a system which ensured a Grand Final, and the concept became entrenched. The NSWRL followed suit in 1954.
[edit] Outside Australia
A Championship Final was introduced to determine the winner of the British Rugby League Championship in 1904, though it only became a regular fixture from 1906 onwards. In 1973 it was replaced by the Premiership Final, and the term Grand Final was first used in 1998, two years after the start of Super League. The Grand Final has now become an accepted part of the British scene, and the term is used to describe the final of leagues below Super League such as the National Leagues and the Conference.
