The 1976 WANFL season was the 92nd season of the
Western Australian National Football League
The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The league currently consists of ten teams, which play each other in a 20-round season usually lasting from March to September, ...
in its various incarnations.
After a half-decade in which the fortunes of all WANFL clubs, with the exception of East Perth, fluctuated severely, 1975 and 1976 saw a return to more stability, with Perth establishing themselves along with East Perth and South Fremantle as the top three of the league. Claremont, six games clear on the bottom in 1975, began with seven wins from ten matches but won only once more, whilst 1975 premiers West Perth had a disastrous start with injuries but recovered in June and July to clearly re-establish themselves as one of the top bracket.
Under coach
Ken Armstrong, the Demons won their first premiership since
Mal Atwell's great team from 1968 – remarkably not one 1968 premiership player appeared eight years later. At the other end of the ladder, 1950s cellar dwellers Subiaco and Swan Districts returned to that position, with the Lions winning only two of their first nineteen games as they lost with no adequate replacements all but twelve of their 1973 senior players to either the VFL, retirement or, with
Mick Malone, cricket commitments.
[Spillman, Ken; ''Diehards: The Story of the Subiaco Football Club 1946-2000''; pp. 178-185 ]
The scoring in 1976 increased to a record average score of 108.05 points per team per game beating the previous record of 101.21 from 1970, a figure to be exceeded in each of the next eleven seasons. From the eighth home-and-away round the WANFL followed
the VFL in introducing a second field umpire, a move instantly regarded as a success.
[‘Thumbs Up for Two Umpires’; ''The West Australian'', 24 May 1976, p. 46] Another innovation, in this case five years ahead of the VFL, was playing two games on Sunday afternoons for the first time. Although rated a success, it was not repeated until 1982.
Home-and-away season
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3 (Easter weekend)
Round 4
Round 5
Round 6
Round 7
Round 8
Round 9
Round 10
Round 11
Round 12
Round 13
Round 14
Round 15
Round 16
Round 17
Round 18
Round 19
Round 20
Round 21
Ladder
Finals
First semi-final
Second semi-final
Preliminary final
Grand Final
References
External links
Official WAFL websiteWestern Australian National Football League (WANFL), 1976
{{WAFL seasons
West Australian Football League seasons
WANFL