The 2016

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...

season is the 135th season of the Victorian Football Association/Victorian Football League Australian rules football competition. There were 15 teams competing in the league. The season started on Saturday 9 April and concluded Sunday 25 September with the VFL Grand Final, won by the Footscray reserves, who defeated the

Casey Scorpions The Casey Football Club, nicknamed the "Demons" and formerly the "Scorpions", is an Australian rules football club based in Cranbourne East, Victoria. The club, which was known until 2005 as the Springvale Football Club and the Casey Scorpions ...

by 31 points at

Etihad Stadium The City of Manchester Stadium in Manchester, England, also known as the Etihad Stadium for sponsorship reasons, is the home of Premier League club Manchester City F.C., with a domestic football capacity of 53,400, making it the 6th-largest ...

. It was the Footscray reserves' second VFL premiership, won in just its third season in the competition.

League membership and affiliations

At the end of the 2015 season, ended its ten-year partial reserves affiliation with

North Ballarat North Ballarat Football & Netball Club, nicknamed ''The Roosters'', is an Australian rules football and netball club based at Mars Stadium in Ballarat. The club currently fields senior, reserve and Under 19 sides in the Ballarat Football Lea ...

. The move was in part motivated by a burgeoning partnership between the

City of Ballarat The City of Ballarat is a local government area in the west of the state of Victoria, Australia. It covers an area of and, in June 2018, had a population of 107,325. Estimated resident population, 30 June 2018. It is primarily urban with the v ...

and North Melbourne's AFL rivals , with North Melbourne not wishing to continue its investment in the Ballarat area if the rewards were to be reaped by another club. North Melbourne's existing partial affiliation with

Werribee Werribee is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, south-west of Melbourne's Melbourne City Centre, Central Business District, located within the City of Wyndham Local government areas of Victoria, local government a ...

was upgraded to a full affiliation, and North Ballarat continued to contest the VFL as a stand-alone senior club. Beginning in the 2016 season, a new statewide women's football league known as ''VFL Women's'' was established by AFL Victoria. The competition was formed from clubs previously established in the

Victorian Women's Football League The Victorian Women's Football League (VWFL) was the oldest and largest Australian rules football league for women in the world, consisting of 47 clubs from Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, across seven divisions and a total of ove ...

, and was aligned and co-branded with the VFL to improve market penetration.

Premiership season

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

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 series

Qualifying and Elimination Finals

Semi-finals

Preliminary Finals

Grand Final

Awards

* The

Frosty Miller Medal The Jim 'Frosty' Miller Medal is awarded to the Victorian Football League player who kicks the most goals in home-and-away matches in that year. The is named in honour of Jim 'Frosty' Miller, who was the leading goalkicker of the Victorian Footbal ...

was won by Ahmed Saad (

Coburg Coburg () is a town located on the Itz river in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. Long part of one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined Bavaria by popular vote only in 1920. Until the revolution of 1918, it was ...

), who kicked 49 goals during the home-and-away season. *The J. J. Liston Trophy was won by Michael Gibbons ( Williamstown), who polled 17 votes.

George Horlin-Smith George Horlin-Smith (born 22 December 1992) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Gold Coast Football Club and the Geelong Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Early life Horlin-Smith went to Pembroke Sc ...

( Geelong reserves) finished second with 15 votes, and

Ben Jolley Ben Jolley (born 12 February 1986) is a former Australian rules footballer who last played for Williamstown in the Victorian Football League. A midfielder from the Calder Cannons, Jolley was picked up by the Essendon Football Club as a rook ...

(Williamstown) and Toby Pinwill (

Port Melbourne Port Melbourne is an inner-city List of Melbourne suburbs, suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, south-west of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the Cities of ...

) were equal third with 14 votes. *The Fothergill-Round Medal was won by Luke Ryan (

). *The Development League premiership was won by Box Hill. Box Hill 26.16 (172) defeated Casey 10.7 (67) in the Grand Final, played at

North Port Oval North Port Oval, also known as the Port Melbourne Cricket Ground or by the sponsored name ETU Stadium, is an Australian rules football and cricket stadium located in Port Melbourne, Australia. The capacity of the venue is 6,000 people. It is ...

on 18 September as a curtain-raiser to the seniors first preliminary final.

Notable events

*In August, the Frankston Football Club, struggling with debts in excess of $1,000,000 and a downturn in the profitability of its poker machine licence, went into

voluntary administration As a legal concept, administration is a procedure under the insolvency laws of a number of common law jurisdictions, similar to bankruptcy in the United States. It functions as a rescue mechanism for insolvent entities and allows them to carry o ...

. The club's VFL licence was terminated the following month, in the week after the VFL Grand Final, resulting in the club missing the 2017 season before being readmitted in 2018 after resolving its financial issues.

References

{{VFA/VFL seasons Victorian Football League seasons VFL