The Fifth Quarter

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

Beginning in the 2004 season, the show was 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 Andrew 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, Jr. 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. At the end of the 2011 season, as Ten had lost AFL broadcast rights, The Fifth Quarter was axed.