2008 AFL finals series

The Australian Football League's 2008 Finals Series determined the top eight final positions of the 2008 AFL season. It began on the weekend of 5 September 2008 and ended with the 112th AFL Grand Final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 27 September 2008. The Hawthorn Hawks were crowned the 2008 AFL Premiers, beating the Geelong Cats by 26 points in front of a crowd of 100,012.

The eight teams qualified for the finals series by finishing in the top eight positions of the premiership ladder at the completion of the home and away series.

With twenty-one wins and one loss Geelong continued from its crushing 2007 season to dominate the home and away rounds of 2008.

The system is a final eight system. This system is different from the McIntyre Final Eight System, which was previously used by the AFL, and is currently used by the National Rugby League.

The top four teams in the eight receive what is popularly known as the "double chance" when they play in week-one qualifying finals; this means that if a top-four team loses in the first week, it still has a chance to redeem itself by getting a chance to play in a semi-final the next week against the winner of an elimination final. The bottom four of the eight are forced to play what are called elimination finals, in which only the winners survive and move on to week two to play the losers of the qualifying finals.

In the second week, the winners of the qualifying finals receive a bye to the third week, while the losers of those qualifying finals must play the winners of the elimination finals for a chance to play the qualifying finals winners. Home-city advantage goes to the team with the higher seed in the first two weeks, and the qualifying final winners in the third week, with games in Victoria played at the MCG, regardless of the team's usual home ground.

In the third week, the winners of the semi-finals from week two play the winners of the qualifying finals in the first week, with the latter receiving home-ground advantage. The winners of those matches move on to the Grand Final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, where the new premier will be crowned.

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