1991 AFL Grand Final
The 1991 AFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the Hawthorn Football Club and West Coast Eagles, held at Waverley Park in Melbourne on 28 September 1991. It was the 94th annual grand final of the Australian Football League (formerly the Victorian Football League), staged to determine the premiers for the 1991 AFL season. The match, attended 75,230 spectators, was won by Hawthorn by a margin of 53 points, marking that club's ninth premiership victory. Reconstruction work at the larger Melbourne Cricket Ground, where most grand finals had been played since 1902, meant that the game was played at Waverley Park, marking the first and only time that this stadium hosted a premiership decider. The match was also the first grand final to feature a team (West Coast) based outside the state of Victoria. Background Hawthorn had played the grand final in seven of the previous eight seasons, having most recently won the 1989 VFL Grand Final, while West Coast was playing in its first grand final ever, having entered the competition just four years previously. The Eagles came into the game as strong favourites, having played through the entire 1991 season as the leading team