The Fifth Quarter

The Fifth Quarter
Format AFL Review Show
Presented by Andrew Maher
Matthew Lloyd
Country of origin Australia
Language(s) English
No. of seasons 8
No. of episodes 208
Production
Location(s) The Como Centre, South Yarra, Melbourne
Running time Approximately 50 minutes (inc. commercials)
Broadcast
Original channel Network Ten
Picture format 576i (SDTV)
1080i (HDTV)
Audio format Stereo
Original run 27 March 2004 – 17 September 2011

The Fifth Quarter is an Australian rules football television program screening on Network Ten on 27 March 2004.

Beginning in the 2004 season, the show is a review show focusing on the Australian rules football football competition, AFL. Following each game on Saturday night, two hosts go through the weekend's events so far in the games played and also topical matters that have appeared during the week. Early in the show's life the two hosts were solely Michael Christian and Andy Maher, however, since 2008 the show has been hosted on a rotating basis, whereby one of Maher and Christian hosts alongside one of Network Ten's other football commentators, such as Luke Darcy, Robert Walls, Malcolm Blight and Tom Harley. They also conduct interviews with players and coaches after the match. Players to be interviewed include Cheynee Stiller and Gary Ablett Jnr. and coaches include Brett Ratten, Mark Harvey and Jade Rawlings (who was interviewed upon coaching the Richmond Football Club for the first time). Before becoming senior coach of the Brisbane Lions, Michael Voss was a regular on The Fifth Quarter.

In 2006, the show was merged into Network Ten's Saturday night AFL coverage, still hosted by Christian and Maher but not listed as a separate program.

The popular long-running segment of the show is entitled Saturday Specials, and highlights all of the outstanding marks, goals or other efforts around the ground that took place on the day just finished. This segment features Kasabian's "Fire" as the background music.

The show also takes a look at nominees for the NAB AFL Rising Star Award, usually reviewing them 4 weeks at a time.