We took the final home-and-away ladder and every finals game of the 33 seasons from 1994 to 2026, as recorded on Wikipedia's season pages such as the 1994 AFL season, and rebuilt each finals series game by game from the format of its year. Grand final results come from the list of VFL/AFL premiers, and the minor premiers up to 2022 match the McClelland Trophy list.
How often the AFL minor premier wins the premiership
Eleven of 33 minor premiers won the flag: West Coast in 1994 and 2006, Carlton in 1995, Essendon in 2000, Port Adelaide in 2004, Geelong in 2007 and 2022, Collingwood in 2010 and 2023, Hawthorn in 2013 and Melbourne in 2021. Nine of them came in the 26 seasons of the AFL final eight system, 2000 to 2025, 35 percent, and two in the six seasons of the McIntyre final eight before it.
Top spot is worth less in the AFL than in the NBA, and more than in baseball or hockey. The team with the best regular-season record won the NBA title 45 percent of the time since 1979-80 and the World Series 26 percent of the time since 1995, and Presidents' Trophy winners have won the Stanley Cup in 20 percent of seasons, eight in 40.
How AFL minor premiers lose the flag
Minor premiers rarely go out early. Twenty-four of the 33 reached the grand final, 73 percent, so the most common way to miss out is on the last day: 13 lost the grand final, eight lost a preliminary final, and only one lost in straight sets, Adelaide in 2025.
Grand finals have been close to a coin toss between the better and worse-placed side. From 1994 to 2025 the higher-placed team won 16 of the 32, counting Collingwood's 2010 replay win after the drawn grand final, and the third-placed Lions beat the first-placed Dockers in 2026. Across all finals the higher-placed team won 191 of 288, 66 percent.
The longest run without a minor premier winning the flag was seven seasons, 2014 to 2020. After three in a row from 2021 to 2023, the run is three seasons again: Sydney lost the 2024 grand final, Adelaide went out in straight sets in 2025, and Fremantle lost the 2026 decider.
| Season | Minor premier | Record | How it ended | Premiers (ladder) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Collingwood | 17-4-1 | Premiers | Collingwood (1st) |
| 2011 | Collingwood | 20-2 | Lost grand final | Geelong (2nd) |
| 2012 | Hawthorn | 17-5 | Lost grand final | Sydney (3rd) |
| 2013 | Hawthorn | 19-3 | Premiers | Hawthorn (1st) |
| 2014 | Sydney | 17-5 | Lost grand final | Hawthorn (2nd) |
| 2015 | Fremantle | 17-5 | Lost preliminary final | Hawthorn (3rd) |
| 2016 | Sydney | 17-5 | Lost grand final | Western Bulldogs (7th) |
| 2017 | Adelaide | 15-6-1 | Lost grand final | Richmond (3rd) |
| 2018 | Richmond | 18-4 | Lost preliminary final | West Coast (2nd) |
| 2019 | Geelong | 16-6 | Lost preliminary final | Richmond (3rd) |
| 2020 | Port Adelaide | 14-3 | Lost preliminary final | Richmond (3rd) |
| 2021 | Melbourne | 17-4-1 | Premiers | Melbourne (1st) |
| 2022 | Geelong | 18-4 | Premiers | Geelong (1st) |
| 2023 | Collingwood | 18-5 | Premiers | Collingwood (1st) |
| 2024 | Sydney | 17-6 | Lost grand final | Brisbane Lions (5th) |
| 2025 | Adelaide | 18-5 | Lost in straight sets | Brisbane Lions (3rd) |
| 2026 | Fremantle | 19-4 | Lost grand final | Brisbane Lions (3rd) |
AFL finals record by ladder position
From 1994 to 2025, minor premiers went 65-28-1 in finals and reached 23 of the 32 grand finals. The record falls with each place on the ladder, with one break: fourth-placed teams won just 40.0 percent of their finals, less than fifth and sixth, partly because since 2000 they have opened every finals series against the minor premier.
| Ladder | Finals record | Win % | Prelim. finals | Grand finals | Flags |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 65-28-1 | 69.7% | 31 | 23 | 11 |
| 2nd | 54-33 | 62.1% | 28 | 17 | 9 |
| 3rd | 50-43-1 | 53.7% | 26 | 13 | 8 |
| 4th | 34-51 | 40.0% | 23 | 5 | 1 |
| 5th | 27-35 | 43.5% | 6 | 3 | 2 |
| 6th | 26-35 | 42.6% | 8 | 2 | 0 |
| 7th | 19-31 | 38.0% | 4 | 1 | 1 |
| 8th | 13-32 | 28.9% | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Fourth is the weakest spot in the top four. Since the AFL final eight began in 2000, fourth-placed teams have gone 23-45 in finals, reached the preliminary finals 20 times in 26 seasons but only three grand finals, and won no premiership; the last flag from fourth was Adelaide's in 1997. Seventeen top-four teams from 1994 to 2025 lost both their finals, seven of them from fourth.
Lowest ladder position to win the AFL premiership
Twenty-nine of the 33 premiers since 1994 finished in the top three, 88 percent, and 20 in the top two. Three won from outside the top four:
- Adelaide, 5th in 1998: under the McIntyre system it lost its first final and still went on to the flag, its second in a row.
- Western Bulldogs, 7th in 2016: four wins in four weeks from an elimination final, the only premier from below fifth since 1994.
- Brisbane Lions, 5th in 2024: four straight wins, ending with the grand final against the minor premier, Sydney.
Losing a final has not ended every title run. Eight premiers since 1994 lost a game during their finals series, among them West Coast in 2006 and the Lions in both 2025 and 2026, who each lost a qualifying final and won the next three.
The 2026 minor premiers and the new wildcard round
The 2026 season was the first with ten finalists. The AFL's wildcard round replaced the bye before the finals: seventh played tenth and eighth played ninth, the top six waited a week, and the two winners played fifth and sixth in the elimination finals. Carlton, tenth at 12-10-1, beat Melbourne 74-55 and the Western Bulldogs beat Collingwood 96-93; both lost the following week, to Geelong and Adelaide.
Fremantle clinched the minor premiership by beating Adelaide in Round 23, its first since 2015 and the second in its history, at 19-4, a game ahead of Sydney. It then lost a home qualifying final to fourth-placed Hawthorn, 72-40, beat Geelong 120-106 in a semi-final and Sydney 83-71 in a preliminary final.
The Lions, third at 16-7, lost their qualifying final to Sydney 141-88, then beat Adelaide and Hawthorn. In the grand final on Saturday, 26 September 2026, Fremantle led by 17 points in the last five minutes before Brisbane kicked the last four goals to win 14.12 (96) to 12.17 (89), a third flag in a row from fifth, third and third on the ladder. Fremantle's Shai Bolton won the Norm Smith Medal in the club's second grand final, after 2013.
For 2027, the race for top spot starts on the Vertize AFL ladder, and our AFL ladder predictor lets you play out the remaining fixture to see who could finish first, in the top six or in the wildcard places.
AFL minor premiers and premiership: frequently asked questions
How often does the AFL minor premier win the premiership? Eleven times in the 33 seasons from 1994 to 2026, 33 percent. The last to do it was Collingwood in 2023.
How often does the minor premier make the AFL grand final? Twenty-four of the 33 minor premiers since 1994 played in the grand final, 73 percent, and 13 of them lost it.
What is the lowest ladder position to win the AFL premiership? Seventh, by the Western Bulldogs in 2016. Adelaide in 1998 and the Brisbane Lions in 2024 won from fifth.
Who were the 2026 AFL minor premiers and premiers? Fremantle finished top at 19-4, and the Brisbane Lions, third on the ladder, beat them by seven points in the grand final for a third straight premiership.
How this was built: the final home-and-away ladder and all 300 finals games, the drawn 2010 grand final included, of the 1994 to 2026 AFL seasons, read from Wikipedia's season pages through the MediaWiki API on October 4, 2026, with grand finals from its list of VFL/AFL premiers and the 2026 season checked against the AFL's own reports. Each finals series was rebuilt from its format, the McIntyre final eight in 1994 to 1999, the AFL final eight in 2000 to 2025 and the final ten in 2026, and every game was matched to its place in that bracket. Two duplicated games with a scoring typo were dropped and three grand finals missing from the season pages were taken from the premiers list. A draw counts as half a win.