The All-Australian team is an all-star team of Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including an interchange bench, of the best performed players during the season, led by that season's premiership coach. Despite its nature, the All-Australian team is only ceremonial. Though the AFL played an All-Star match in 2020, it was the first in 12 years, and the difference in skill level between the All-Australian team and the nearest international competitor is currently too large for any contest to be competitive. From 1998 to 2004, the Australian international rules team was mainly composed of All-Australians, and from 2005 to 2013 the team for the annual International Rules Series was selected according to the quite different requirements of International rules football. This change was reverted ahead of the 2014 series, with only players who have been selected at least once in any All-Australian team being eligible for selection.
History
The earliest concept considered to be a precursor to the All-Australian team was an annual team selected by Sporting Life magazine between 1947 and 1955. A panel of sportswriters at the magazine selected a full team of eighteen from all ANFC-affiliated competitions. For a time, AFL historians considered these teams to be official All-Australian teams, but no longer recognises them as such. The first official All-Australian team was selected in 1953, immediately after the Australian Football Carnival, which was held in Adelaide on that occasion. Based solely upon performances at the carnival, the All-Australian team was selected by representatives of the various state teams. This tradition continued at all subsequent interstate carnivals until 1988. In 1991, following the VFL's conversion to a national competition and its renaming as the Australian Football League, an annual All-Australian team based on performances during the AFL premiership season was introduced. Since 1999, the All-Australian coach is the coach of the premiership-winning side that year. Prior to 2007, only the final selections in the All-Australian team were announced. Since 2007, the All-Australian selection committee has nominated the 40 leading players of the year in their playing positions at the conclusion of the home and away season, before announcing the final 22 at a later date during the All-Australian Presentation Dinner. The current All-Australian selection panel consists of chairman Gillon McLachlan, Kevin Bartlett, Luke Darcy, Danny Frawley, Steve Hocking, Glen Jakovich, Chris Johnson, Cameron Ling, Matthew Richardson and Warren Tredrea. In addition to the senior All-Australian team, each year an All-Australian is announced based on the AFL National Under 18 Championships and the AFL National Under 16 Championships. The following lists are for senior teams only.
Despite being awarded the Brownlow Medal retrospectively alongside Trent Cotchin over four years later in November 2016, Sam Mitchell was not selected in the team, but was selected in the initial squad of 40.
