Eastern Australian Football League
Upcoming season or competition: 2016 EAFL season
|
|
| Formerly |
|
|---|---|
| Sport | Australian rules football |
| Founded | 1998 |
| Inaugural season | 1998 |
| No. of teams | 5 |
| Country | USA |
| Most titles |
New York (6 premierships) |
| Related competitions |
USAFL |
The Eastern Australian Football League is an Australian rules football competition in the Eastern United States of America and a division of the United States Australian Football League.
In the early months of 2005, member clubs of the South Eastern Australian Football League and North Eastern Australian Football League on the eastern seaboard formed a new league, the Eastern AFL.
The league at the start of the 2005 season comprised the Florida Redbacks, the North Carolina Tigers, the Baltimore Washington Eagles, the Pittsburgh Wallabies, the Philadelphia Hawks, the New York Magpies and the Boston Demons. At the end of the season, Pittsburgh disbanded, and the Redbacks pulled out of the league due to high travel costs of playing the Northern teams. The league continued as a five-team division from 2006 until 2010.
From 2006, the USAFL's two Florida-based clubs, the Tampa area based Redbacks and Fort Lauderdale Fighting Squids, played together as the Florida United Saints, playing an independent schedule against teams in the Southeast. In 2010, the Saints played four of the five EAFL clubs (all except Boston). Prior to the 2011 season, the Redbacks and Squids ended their merger and will play as two separate clubs, with the Squids playing independently still and the Redbacks returning to play a full EAFL schedule. In 2012, the Redbacks regional schedule and were not included in the EAFL premiership table.
Boston won the inaugural EAFL championship title over New York. Since then, New York and Baltimore/Washington have won each of the last six titles, with New York winning each year since 2009.
Each team plays the four teams in the league once during the regular season, with home field alternating every other year. Because of travel costs and scheduling constraints, some matches are played in neutral sites. In further cases, three teams will gather in one site and play each other in "lightning" format (two 20-minute halves as opposed to four quarters), with points counting towards the EAFL premiership table. In 2012, scheduling conflicts and miscommunication caused three teams -- Baltimore/Washington, Boston, and North Carolina -- to only play two league games, while Philadelphia and New York played a full four-match schedule. Though there was concern over whether that would affect who won the premiership, New York's 4-0 record negated any controversy that the odd schedule would have.
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