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1898 VFL finals series


The Victorian Football League's 1898 finals series determined the premiers of the 1898 VFL season. Played under a new playoff system, the finals featured all eight teams, beginning on 27 August and concluding with the 1898 VFL Grand Final on 24 September.

The premiership was won by Fitzroy, who defeated Essendon by 15 points in the Grand Final.

The VFL introduced a new system of finals for the 1898 season. Under the new arrangement the season was to take place as follows:

The finals then took place over one or two weeks as follows:

The essence of this format is that all teams had the chance to contest the major premiership, but the minor premier – as reward for its performances during the home-and-away season – had the right to challenge for the major premiership if it was either eliminated in the sectional rounds, or lost the first final. A stipulation was included to remove the minor premier's right to challenge if it performed poorly in the sectional rounds in order to prevent the team from resting its players or failing to take the sectional rounds seriously. The minor premier's right to challenge was not included in the original release of the fixture, but was added shortly before the start of the season.

The finals system was also used in an adapted form by the South Australian Football Association for three seasons from 1899 until 1901. The SAFA amended the system for its six team competition by having two sections of three teams instead of two sections of four teams; and in 1901 amended it for its seven-team competition by staging an entire seven-team round-robin without a final instead of splitting the teams into two sections. Under the SAFA's 1901 variation, the minor premier was entitled to two challenge matches instead of one.

The finals system introduced this year was used for three seasons from 1898 until 1900, but it had its drawbacks. Among them was confusion over the allocation of the minor placings under the 1898 system. At the end of the 1898 season, on the Monday following the Grand Final between Fitzroy and Essendon, the football correspondent of The Age made it clear that he was not entirely sure which team should be thought to have finished second:


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