2009 AFL season

2009 AFL premiership season
Official 2009 AFL logo
Teams	16
Premiers	Geelong (8th premiership)
Minor premiers	St Kilda (3rd minor premiership)
Pre-season cup	Geelong (2nd pre-season cup win)
Matches played	185
Attendance	6,988,638 (37,776 per match)
Highest attendance	99,251 (Grand Final, St Kilda vs. Geelong)
Coleman Medallist	Brendan Fevola Carlton (86 goals)
Brownlow Medallist	Gary Ablett, Jr. Geelong (30 votes)
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The 2009 Australian Football League season commenced on 26 March and concluded on 26 September. It was the 113th season of the VFL/AFL competition. The season consisted of 22 home and away rounds and four rounds of finals, culminating in the 2009 AFL Grand Final which determined the 2009 AFL premiers. Geelong won the Grand Final against St Kilda.

The pre-season draft was held on 16 December 2008 (but is referred to as the 2009 Pre-season draft in continuation from the early years of the AFL draft when it was held in January or February) and most pre-draft interest was on whether or not former West Coast Eagles captain and Brownlow Medal winner Ben Cousins would be selected by the Richmond Football Club. Richmond, the only club to show interest in recruiting Cousins, had one selection in the pre-season draft (because it had only one space left on its senior list). In the week leading up to the pre-season draft, Richmond requested to have Graham Polak (who had been hit by a tram the previous season, with it not clear at this stage whether or not the resulting injuries would end his career) moved to the rookie list, to free up an additional list space and give them a second selection in the pre-season draft. The request was similar to one made by and granted to the Essendon Football Club a few years earlier with respect to Adam Ramanauskas, but there were key differences which led to Richmond's request being rejected by the AFL and a majority of rival clubs on 15 December. Although Richmond had maintained throughout the previous week that it would draft Cousins only if its request to put Polak on the rookie list was granted, they selected Cousins anyway with their only selection in the pre-season draft. Josh Carr's return to Port Adelaide was the other major player move.

Bold – Home game

The 2009 award was won by Daniel Rich from the Brisbane Lions.