We look at some of the biggest winning margins and VFL/AFL history. There is something almost surreal about a football game where one team so comprehensively outclasses the other that the contest ceases to exist. In Australian rules football, where the final margin can stretch into the hundreds of points, blowout victories are not merely statistical oddities but moments burned into the historical record. They speak to dominant teams at the peak of their powers, to struggling opponents caught in the wrong era, and to the cruel arithmetic of a game where goals count six and behinds count one.
From the record-breaking destruction in 1979 to a modern-era belting that defied everything we thought the contemporary game was supposed to prevent, these are the five biggest winning margins in AFL and VFL history.
The biggest winning margin in the history of the competition remains, all these decades later. The Round 17, 1979 at Waverley Park would be a game that Melbourne supporters would sooner forget, Fitzroy dismantled their opponents to win by a staggering 190 points, a record that has stood for over 45 years and although it has been threatened a few times since it is yet to be surpassed.
Fitzroy were a relatively strong side in the late 1970s, with stars like Bernie Quinlan, Robert Walls and Micky Conlan. Melbourne, by contrast, were in one of the bleaker periods of their storied history, a club struggling to find consistency or structure. The collision of these two trajectories produced something unprecedented.
The Lions kicked 7 goals to 2 in the first quarter to open up a 36 point lead at quarter time. They slammed another 7 goals in the second quarter, keeping the Demons goalless to boost the gap to 81 points at the long break. The third quarter is where they would really push the margin into unprecedented territory, piling on 12 goals to 2 in a dominant display. By three quarter time the margin had blown out to a monster 141 points. A further 10 goals to 2 in the final term would see the Lions finish the game with not only the biggest score in history at the time but the largest winning margin. Fitzroy scored 36.22.238, eclipsing Footscray’s record total from the season before by 26 points.
Bob Beecroft dominated the scoring for the Lions with 10 majors. Warwick Irwin booted 5 goals to go with his 36 touches, while Bernie Quinlan and Mick Conlan kicked 4 each. Rover Garry Wilson found a stack of the footy, finishing the game with 42 disposals as well as 3 goals of his own.
Melbourne’s Graham Gaunt was the only multiple goal kicker for the hapless Demons with 2 goals and also had the most disposals for his side, getting 33 touches.
This record belongs to a different football world, one where the gap between the best and worst clubs in the competition could yawn open to extraordinary proportions. It is a monument to football’s past as much as it is a statistical fact. It’s also quite interesting that the club with the highest winning margin no longer exists in the AFL in it’s original form, having merged with the Brisbane Bears in 1997 to form the modern day Brisbane Lions.
If the 1979 record felt like ancient history, the 2011 Geelong side served as a reminder that even in the modern era, a team hot enough could still produce something jaw-dropping. When the Cats ran over Melbourne in Round 19, winning by 186 points, it sent a shockwave through the competition and briefly raised the question of whether the all-time record itself was under threat. The Cats were in a golden period at the time, having won the premiership in 2007 and 2009, while the poor Demons were at the mercy of another monster defeat.
Geelong’s 2011 incarnation was one of the great AFL teams. They would go on to win the premiership that year, and in Stevie Johnson, Joel Corey, Jimmy Bartel, and a supporting cast of elite footballers, they had a squad capable of overwhelming anyone on their day. Melbourne, much as they had been in 1979, were in the depths of a difficult period, a young list still several years from becoming competitive.
The result was breathtaking in its one-sidedness. Geelong’s forwards feasted. Their pressure was relentless. Their conversion was clinical.
The Cats jumped out of the blocks kicking 8 goals in the first terms and keeping the Demons goalless. By half time the record was well under threat, with the home side piling on 12 goals in the second and Melbourne only managing 1 for the half, a margin of 114 points.
Geelong booted another 8 goals in the third quarter but Melbourne hit the scoreboard, probably preventing the record from being smashed, kicking 4 goals of their own. At three-quarter time the margin was 142 points, with Geelong also on a massive 28.8.176. The record score and margin were still within reach.
A nine goal to two last quarter would see them finish with a final margin of 186 points stood as the largest in the competition for over three decades. The would be just a goal shy of the all-time highest score and agonisingly 4 points short of the biggest margin.
Steve Johnson booted a game high 7 goals for the home side, while big forwards Tom Hawkins and Cameron Mooney finished with 5 a piece. Midfielder Joel Selwood gathered a career equaling best 43 touches to goal with 11 tackles. Once again the Demons would only have one multiple goal kicker with Lynden Dunn kicking 2 majors for the visitors.
What made this game remarkable was the era in which it occurred. By 2011, the AFL had implemented decades of equalisation measures. The draft, free agency frameworks, and the salary cap were all in place. Yet here was a team losing by 186 points in a home-and-away round. It underscored an uncomfortable truth: when elite meets struggling, the rules of the modern game provide no guaranteed protection.
The year 1979 was apparently a vintage one for record-setting blowouts. Just a few months before Fitzroy laid waste to Melbourne, Collingwood had delivered their own piece of history, defeating St Kilda by 178 points in Round 4 at Victoria Park to establish what remains the third-largest winning margin in the competition’s history.
Collingwood in the late 1970s were a formidable outfit. The black-and-white were well-stocked with talent and could produce performances of extraordinary dominance on their day and making a number of Grand Final appearances around that time. St Kilda, meanwhile, were enduring a lean stretch, a side who were unable to match the best teams in the competition at their peak.
What the 1979 season reveals in stark terms is just how uneven the competition was during that period. Two of the five largest winning margins in history occurred in the same calendar year, both involving different clubs and different opponents. The concentration of talent at the top end of the competition, combined with the relative weakness of the bottom clubs, created conditions where centuries-of-margin results were not just possible but apparently common.
The Pies booted 7 first quarter goals while the Saints only managed 1, as Collingwood skipped away to a 42-point margin at quarter time. A further 6 goals in the second quarter saw the margin drift out to 72 at the half but it was the second half that was brutal for the Saints. Eight third quarter goals, followed by 10 goals to none in the final term saw the Magpies knocked off a record margin that stood since 1919.
Craig Davis and Craig Stewart both kicked 6 goals for Collingwood while Rene Kink booted 5 majors. Ray Shaw also chipped in with 4 goals, alongside a game high 36 touches. The hapless Saints only managed 3 goals, all from individual goal kickers.
Collingwood’s 178-point win remains the club’s largest winning margin and a permanent fixture in the record books. For St Kilda supporters, it sits alongside the other painful milestones that define the club’s complicated history.
When West Coast travelled to face Sydney at the SCG in Round 15 of the 2023 season, the Eagles were enduring one of the bleakest campaigns in club history. Injuries had ravaged the list, the rebuild was underway, and confidence had collapsed long before the opening bounce. The Swans had an indifferent season, scraping into the finals after being smashed in the previous seasons Grand Final.
The gulf was immediate as the Swans piled on 9 goals to 1 in the opening quarter to skip away to a 52 lead at the first change. The Eagles somewhat stemmed the tide in the second quarter, kicking 3 goals and keeping their opponents to 5 goals. It fell apart in the third term as the home side slammed on 11 unanswered goals to stretch the margin to 137 points and put them within striking distance of the record. The Swans couldn’t match it in the final quarter booting 6 goals to 1 to fall short of the record by 19 points.
Sydney gun Isaac Heeney booted 5 majors, while big men Joel Amarty and Logan McDonald kicked 4 goals each. Chad Warner and Errol Gulden both picked up 30+ disposals in the thumping. Oscar Allen and Jack Darling kicked 2 each for the Eagles.
The result was the fourth-largest winning margin in AFL history: 171 points, a number that shocked even seasoned observers of the game. In the era of the modern AFL, with every tool at the competition’s disposal to keep sides competitive, a 171-point loss felt almost anachronistic, a throwback to those wild 1970s results.
The oldest entry on this list comes from a different world entirely. In Round 12 of the 1919 VFL season, South Melbourne defeated St Kilda by 171 points in a result that stands as one of the most remarkable in the competition’s early history and a record that stood for almost 60 years.
Football in 1919 was barely recognisable compared to the modern game. The rules were different, the grounds were often in poor condition, the clubs operated with nothing like the professional structures that exist today, and clubs may still have been affected by World War 1 which came to an end the previous year.
Unlike the other records on this list, the Bloods didn’t score over the 200 point mark but managed to restrict the Saints to just 2 goals for the game. In fact the result didn’t even look out of place until a bizarre final quarter. South Melbourne only kicked 2 goals in the first quarter but kept the Saints scoreless. 4 goals to 2 in the second term saw the half time lead at just 29 points. The Saints were kept scoreless again in the third as South Melbourne booted 6 but the 65 margin at the final break wasn’t something unusual.
What occurred in the final quarter, to this day is unprecedented. The home side piled on 17 goals, 4 behinds which still stands as the biggest single score in a quarter of VFL/AFL ever recorded. The 106 points to 0 in the final quarter helped the Bloods to the highest ever score and highest ever margin at the time, both of which would stand for decades. Reports from the match indicate that the Saints lost 4 players to injury, leaving them with just 14 fit players for the final term slaughter, while team in-fighting is to believed to have caused some others to have stormed off the field in protest. None of this stopped a ruthless display from the home side.
Harold Robertson help himself to 14 goals in the massacre which was also a record at the time, with Harry Brereton booting 6 majors for himself.
What ties this century-old result to the 2023 entry at number four is a poetic coincidence: both matches finish on the same winning margin of 171 points, separated by 104 years of football history. That symmetry speaks to something almost timeless about the capacity of the game to produce moments of extreme imbalance, regardless of era, regardless of the competition’s attempts to maintain fairness and competitiveness.
For South Melbourne, the club that would eventually become the Sydney Swans, this 1919 result is a piece of heritage largely unknown to modern supporters. But it belongs in this list precisely because it reminds us that blowouts are not a modern problem or a nostalgic quirk. They are woven into the fabric of Australian football from the very beginning.
