1949 VFL premiership season
Essendon Football Club, premiers
Teams	12
Premiers	Essendon 9th premiership
Minor premiers	North Melbourne 1st minor premiership
Brownlow Medallist	Ron Clegg (South Melbourne) Col Austen (Hawthorn)
Leading Goalkicker Medallist	John Coleman (Essendon)
Matches played	118
Highest	88,718
← 1948 1950 →

The 1949 VFL season was the 53rd season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 16 April until 24 September, and comprised a 19-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs.

The premiership was won by the Essendon Football Club for the ninth time, after it defeated Carlton by 73 points in the 1949 VFL Grand Final.

Background

In 1949, the VFL competition consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, plus two substitute players, known as the 19th man and the 20th man. A player could be substituted for any reason; however, once substituted, a player could not return to the field of play under any circumstances.

Teams played each other in a home-and-away season of 19 rounds; matches 12 to 19 were the "home-and-way reverse" of matches 1 to 8.

Once the 19 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1949 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the Page–McIntyre system.

Home-and-away season

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Round 9

Round 10

Round 11

Round 12

Round 13

Round 14

Round 15

Round 16

Round 17

Round 18

Round 19

Ladder

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 78.3
Source: AFL Tables

Finals series

Semi-finals

Preliminary final

Grand final

Notable events

• In Round 1, John Coleman of Essendon kicked 12 goals in his first VFL game; he was best on the ground. He kicked a goal with his first kick in VFL football, having taken a mark in the first seconds of the match; and he kicked a goal with his last kick of the 1949 season, in last minutes of the Grand Final, to bring his season's total to 100 goals.
• In Round 12, Hawthorn scored seven goals and no behinds in its match against Essendon. This is the first time since Round 9, 1899 that a team did not score a single behind in a VFL match.
• In Round 19, Richmond's captain-coach Jack Dyer played his last VFL game, having played 16 games for Victoria, 312 senior games for Richmond, and 12 games in Richmond Seconds over 19 VFL seasons.

Awards

• The 1949 VFL Premiership team was Essendon.
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was John Coleman of Essendon with 100 goals (including 15 goals in the final series).
• The winner of the 1949 Brownlow Medal was Ron Clegg of South Melbourne with 23 votes on a countback from Colin Austen of Hawthorn (because Clegg had been best on the ground six times to Austen's five).
  • As a consequence of its 1981 decision to change its rules relating to tied Brownlow Medal contests, the AFL awarded a retrospective medal to Colin Austen in 1989.
• Hawthorn took the "wooden spoon" in 1949.
• The seconds premiership was won by Melbourne. Melbourne 17.10 (112) defeated Essendon 9.14 (68) in the Grand Final, played as a curtain-raiser to the senior Grand Final on Saturday 24 September at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.^[1]