Excellence clusters, but the gaps are equally telling.
For 35 years, the AFL's All-Australian team has served as a kind of annual census of excellence — a record of where brilliance has concentrated, endured, or gone quiet across the league's 18 clubs. Since Australian football went national in 1991, the award has evolved from its carnival-era origins into a season-long reckoning, revealing not just who played well, but which clubs have sustained the conditions for greatness and which have struggled to produce it. The numbers, accumulated across three and a half decades, tell a story less about fairness than about the uneven geography of human achievement.
- Geelong's nine All-Australians in a single season — 2007 — remains an unreached benchmark, a monument to what a dynasty looks like when it peaks all at once.
- Max Gawn and Patrick Dangerfield share the individual career record at eight selections each, a threshold so rare that only two players have crossed it in 35 years of national competition.
- North Melbourne has endured 18 seasons without a single All-Australian representative, and Richmond has produced just four in the past 15 years — quiet signals of structural decline in clubs that once defined the competition.
- Collingwood currently fields eight All-Australians and has never produced a team captain, while Geelong leads all clubs with five captains — a distinction that separates dominance from mere participation.
- The 2025 All-Australian landscape shows Sydney and West Coast each claiming nine current representatives, suggesting the competition's center of gravity continues to shift.
The All-Australian team turned 35 this year, but its roots stretch back to 1947, when Sporting Life magazine began informally naming the country's best players — an unofficial exercise that ran until 1955. The first official selection came in 1953, drawn from the Australian Football Carnival in Adelaide, and for decades the award remained tied to those interstate gatherings. When the national competition launched in 1991, the team became what it is today: a season-long verdict on the AFL's finest performers.
The history of selections maps the league's shifting power. Geelong holds the single-season record with nine All-Australians in 2007, a roster that included Gary Ablett, Jimmy Bartel, and Matthew Scarlett among others — a snapshot of a club at the height of its dynasty. At the individual level, Melbourne's Max Gawn and Patrick Dangerfield share the career record with eight selections each, a mark that speaks to sustained excellence in a competition built to resist it.
Not every story is one of abundance. North Melbourne has gone 18 seasons without representation since 1991, including long droughts that bracket the early 2000s. Richmond has managed only four All-Australians in 15 years. Essendon, despite its historical weight, has been absent in 16 of the 35 seasons since the competition went national. These silences are as meaningful as the selections themselves.
The captaincy record adds another layer. Only 12 clubs have ever produced an All-Australian captain. Geelong leads with five, including Joel Selwood's three terms and Jeremy Cameron's 2025 appointment. Collingwood has never held the captaincy despite its current depth. Port Adelaide and Essendon share that absence too — historical giants with no captain to show for it.
What three and a half decades of data ultimately reveal is that the All-Australian team is not a celebration of the league's parity, but an honest record of where excellence has actually lived — and how rarely it stays in one place for long.
The All-Australian team announcement arrived again on Thursday night, marking the 35th iteration of the award since Australian football went national in 1991. But the story of excellence it tells stretches back much further—to 1947, when Sporting Life magazine first attempted to name an unofficial composite team of the country's best players, a practice that continued until 1955 with no official standing.
The first official All-Australian team came in 1953, selected from performances at that year's Australian Football Carnival in Adelaide. For the next 35 years, the award remained tied to the carnival, with representatives from various state teams doing the choosing. Between 1982 and 1990, a parallel "Team of the Year" emerged from Victorian selectors, creating a period where players could earn dual recognition. When the national competition launched in 1991, the All-Australian team transformed into what it is today: a season-long assessment by expert panels, recognizing the best performers across the entire AFL calendar.
The landscape of All-Australian success reveals distinct patterns across the league's 18 clubs. Geelong stands as the single-season record holder, placing nine players in 2007—a year that included Gary Ablett, Jimmy Bartel, Joel Corey, Matthew Egan, Steve Johnson, Cameron Ling, Darren Milburn, Cameron Mooney, and Matthew Scarlett. Melbourne's Max Gawn holds the individual career record with eight All-Australian selections, a mark that reflects both his sustained excellence and the rarity of such longevity at the game's highest level. Patrick Dangerfield, who earned eight selections across his time at Adelaide and Geelong, stands alongside him as one of only two players to reach that threshold since 1991.
But the data also tells stories of struggle. North Melbourne has endured 18 seasons without a single All-Australian since 1991—including a drought from 1991 through 2000, and another from 2001 through 2022. Richmond has managed only four All-Australians in the past 15 years, with no selections in 2021, 2024, or 2025. Essendon, despite its historical prominence, has gone without representation in 16 of the 35 seasons since the competition went national. These gaps speak to the difficulty of sustaining excellence in a league designed to distribute talent.
The current All-Australian squads show how success clusters. Collingwood fields eight current All-Australians, led by Scott Pendlebury's six career selections—the most for any player at the club. Brisbane has six, anchored by Lachie Neale's four selections. Geelong, despite recent struggles, still has seven, with Patrick Cripps and Charlie Curnow among the most decorated. Melbourne's six includes Max Gawn and Christian Petracca, who has earned four selections in his career. Sydney and West Coast each have nine current All-Australians, reflecting recent competitive peaks.
The captaincy of All-Australian teams has been distributed sparingly. Only 12 clubs have produced captains since 1991. Geelong leads with five captains—Gary Ablett, Joel Selwood (three times), Patrick Dangerfield, Tom Hawkins, and Jeremy Cameron in 2025. Collingwood has never produced an All-Australian captain. North Melbourne's Wayne Carey captained the team four times in the 1990s and early 2000s, a period when the club was genuinely competitive at the highest level. Port Adelaide has never had an All-Australian captain, nor has Essendon, despite both clubs' historical stature.
What emerges from three and a half decades of selections is a portrait of a league in constant motion. The same names—Pendlebury, Fyfe, Dangerfield, Gawn—appear repeatedly, evidence that individual brilliance still matters. But the gaps are equally telling. Entire seasons pass without certain clubs producing a single player worthy of the honor. The All-Australian team, in the end, is less a celebration of parity than a record of where excellence has actually lived.
Notable Quotes
Patrick Dangerfield and Max Gawn are the only two players since 1991 to reach eight All-Australian selections across their careers— AFL.com.au historical records
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does the All-Australian team matter so much that we track it back to 1947?
Because it's the only measure we have of who was actually best, across the entire country, in any given year. It's not about trophies or finals wins—it's about individual performance at the highest level.
So when Geelong put nine players in 2007, what does that tell us?
That for one season, Geelong had an extraordinary concentration of talent. Nine of the best 22 players in the entire league were wearing the same jumper. It's almost impossible to sustain.
Max Gawn has eight selections. Is that just because he's been at Melbourne a long time?
Partly. But he's also been genuinely excellent for nearly a decade. Eight selections means he was in the top 22 in the country eight different times. That's rare.
North Melbourne went 18 seasons without an All-Australian. How does that happen?
You stop being good enough. The talent moves elsewhere, through the draft or trades. You become a rebuilding club. And once you're rebuilding, it's hard to get back.
Does it matter that some clubs have never had an All-Australian captain?
It matters symbolically. It means those clubs have never had a player so dominant that the selectors felt compelled to make them captain. It's a mark of never quite reaching the absolute peak.
What does the current data suggest about the next few years?
That Geelong, Melbourne, Collingwood, and Brisbane have the deepest talent. But the gaps—the years with nothing—they can close quickly if a club gets lucky with the draft.