The Anzac Day AFL Clash: History, Meaning and the Medal

The Anzac Day AFL match is played between Essendon and Collingwood at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 25 April every year. It draws the largest home-and-away crowd in Australian sport, is preceded by a full commemorative service, and produces a medal named for the day. Collingwood lead the series by 19 wins to 10 with two draws across 31 meetings through 2026.

It began in 1995 as an idea from Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy, and the first match could not have gone better for it: a draw, 111 points each, before about 94,825 people. Nothing about that afternoon was planned as a permanent tradition, and yet within a year the match was being described as a fixed part of the calendar. Thirty years on it is the single most valuable date on the AFL's home-and-away schedule and the subject of a genuine argument about whether two clubs should own it.

This page covers where the fixture came from, what happens on the day, how the medal works, and why a growing number of people think the arrangement should change. For the underlying club rivalries that sit behind it, see the guide to AFL rivalries.

Why football and Anzac Day are connected at all

Anzac Day, 25 April, marks the 1915 landing at Gallipoli and has become Australia's principal day of national commemoration for all military service. It is a public holiday in every state and territory, and the traditional shape of the day is a dawn service, a march, and then the afternoon.

Football filled the afternoon long before 1995. The clubs sent large numbers of players to both world wars, club honour boards carry the names of members who did not return, and the connection between suburban football clubs and returned servicemen's organisations in Australia is old and direct. The Returned and Services League was involved in Anzac Day football arrangements for decades before the modern fixture existed.

What changed in 1995 was not the connection. It was the concentration of it into one match.

Football on Anzac Day before 1995

Between 1960 and 1994 the game was shared out. Published research counts something like 79 Anzac Day matches across that 35-year period, typically two or more on the day, rotated among clubs and grounds. Every club took a turn. Carlton, Geelong, Melbourne and Richmond between them played about 70 of those matches.

There was no single showpiece and no medal. There was simply football on a public holiday, with a service beforehand at whichever ground was hosting, and the clubs involved changed from year to year.

One of those matches matters more than the rest in hindsight. Collingwood played Richmond on Anzac Day in 1977 and drew a very large crowd. That match is the direct ancestor of the modern fixture, because it is the one Kevin Sheedy remembered.

Kevin Sheedy's idea

Sheedy coached Essendon from 1981 to 2007. He had completed two years of military service, and by his own account the idea for a dedicated Anzac Day match came to him while he was gardening.

The proposal was specific: Essendon against Collingwood, at the MCG, on the day, with a proper commemorative service in front of it. Sheedy took it to club officials at both clubs and to the RSL, whose involvement was essential — a football match on a day of national mourning would not have survived a hostile reaction from returned servicemen's organisations.

It is worth saying plainly that Sheedy's motives were mixed in the way that most successful sporting ideas are. He believed in the commemoration and he also understood exactly what a guaranteed 90,000-seat fixture would be worth to his club. Both things can be true.

The 1995 match

Collingwood 17.9 (111) drew with Essendon 16.15 (111), on 25 April 1995, in front of about 94,825 people at the MCG.

Saverio Rocca kicked 9.2 for Collingwood from ten marks and thirteen disposals, a performance that would later earn him the 1995 Anzac Medal retrospectively. The two sides could not be separated, which meant the first Anzac Day match ended with nobody able to claim it — an outcome that, in a fixture built on shared commemoration rather than triumph, several people at the time pointed out was almost too neat.

The crowd was the part that changed everything. A home-and-away match drawing close to 95,000 was outside anything the competition had experienced, and it made the fixture's permanence a commercial certainty rather than a question.

• 31Meetings
• 19Collingwood wins
• 10Essendon wins
• 2Draws

Counts only matches played between Essendon and Collingwood on 25 April since 1995. It excludes the second meeting the two clubs usually play elsewhere in the season, and excludes the years the fixture was not staged on the day.

The crowd, then and since

The 1995 attendance of about 94,825 stood as the fixture record for 28 years. It was broken in 2023, when 95,179 attended.

Both numbers sit close to the practical capacity of the modern MCG, which is an all-seated venue of about 100,000. The terraces that allowed 121,696 people into the 1970 grand final no longer exist, so there is limited room for the record to grow. What the figures do show is that the fixture has held its size for three decades regardless of where the two clubs sit on the ladder, which is not true of any other match on the calendar.

For context on the venue itself and how it handles crowds of that size, the MCG guide covers access, seating and the surrounding parkland.

50%50%

• 202395179
• 199594825

Official attendances at the MCG. The 1995 figure is reported as 94,824 or 94,825 depending on the source, a discrepancy of one that is normal for attendance records of that age.

Show the numbers

The two largest Anzac Day crowds

Item	Value
2023	95179
1995	94825

What happens before the first bounce

The commemorative service is not a token. It runs immediately before the match and the ground is expected to observe it in full.

1. 1Veterans recognisedServing personnel and returned veterans are acknowledged on the ground, often including a march or a formal presentation before the teams appear.
2. 2Flag ceremonyThe Australian and New Zealand flags are raised or presented on the ground as part of the formal proceedings.
3. 3National anthemsThe anthems of both Australia and New Zealand are performed, reflecting that Anzac refers to a joint Australian and New Zealand force.
4. 4The Last PostA bugler plays the Last Post, the signal that traditionally marks the end of the day and is used at all Australian commemorative services.
5. 5The Ode and the silenceThe Ode of Remembrance is read and the whole ground observes a minute of silence, which at a full MCG is the moment most people describe afterwards.
6. 6Rouse and first bounceThe Rouse or Reveille follows the silence, the ceremonial party leaves the ground and the match begins immediately.

The order of service as conducted in recent seasons. Details vary slightly year to year at the discretion of the AFL, the clubs and the Returned and Services League, so treat this as the usual shape rather than a fixed script.

The transition from silence to a full-throated football crowd inside about ninety seconds is jarring the first time you experience it, and it is the thing that most sharply separates this fixture from an ordinary round.

The Anzac Medal

The Anzac Medal is awarded after each match to the player judged to best exemplify the qualities associated with the day: skill, courage, self-sacrifice, teamwork and fair play. Those criteria are deliberately broader than best-on-ground, though in practice the best player usually wins it.

The medal was struck in 2000, five years after the fixture began. In 2011, before that year's match, the AFL together with Essendon and Collingwood presented retrospective medals for the matches from 1995 to 1999, so that the record is complete from the first game. Saverio Rocca was awarded the 1995 medal, Scott Russell 1996, Damian Monkhorst 1997 and Rocca again in 1998.

James Hird won three, which stood as the record for many years. Scott Pendlebury passed it in 2026 with his fourth, having won in 2010, 2011, 2019 and 2026 — a span of sixteen years in the same fixture, which says as much about longevity as about any single performance.

The trophy

The winning club receives the Anzac Day trophy. It is built from materials with a direct connection to the events commemorated: bronze salvaged from the Gallipoli battlefields, and ironbark taken from an ammunition wagon used during the First World War.

That is unusual. Most Australian sporting trophies are commissioned silverware with a name attached. This one is constructed so that the object itself carries the history, which is consistent with how the rest of the day is handled.

Milestones in the fixture's history

Year	What happened
1977	Collingwood play Richmond on Anzac Day and draw a very large crowd, the match Kevin Sheedy later cited as his inspiration
1995	First Essendon against Collingwood Anzac Day match, drawn 111-111 before about 94,825
2000	The Anzac Medal is struck and awarded for the first time
2011	Retrospective Anzac Medals presented for the 1995 to 1999 matches
2015	The Anzac Day Eve fixture begins, Melbourne against Richmond on 24 April
2020	The season is suspended and the fixture is not played on the day
2023	Crowd record of 95,179
2026	Collingwood win by 77 points, their largest Anzac Day margin, and Scott Pendlebury wins a fourth medal

Why Collingwood and Essendon

There is no historical reason connected to the day itself. Neither club has a stronger claim to Anzac commemoration than any other. Both sent members to both wars; so did every club in the competition.

The reason is practical. In 1995 Essendon and Collingwood were the two clubs most likely to fill the MCG between them — Collingwood has the largest supporter base in Australian sport, and Essendon was then one of the strongest and best-supported clubs in the competition. Sheedy coached one of them and had the relationship with the RSL. The match was designed to be enormous, and it was.

What has happened since is that the fixture has become the rivalry rather than the other way around. Essendon against Collingwood was an ordinary Victorian fixture before 1995 and is now the biggest match on the calendar outside September, entirely because of what was built around it.

The monopoly argument

This is a real dispute, not a manufactured one.

The case for change is straightforward. Anzac Day is a national day of commemoration. Before 1995 football on the day was shared among all clubs, with about 79 matches spread across 35 years and every club taking a turn. Since 1995 the four clubs who played most often before then — Carlton, Geelong, Melbourne and Richmond — have played on the day only a handful of times between them. Those clubs have their own war dead, their own honour boards and their own members who would like to commemorate them in front of their own supporters. Former Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse is among those who have argued the fixture should rotate.

The case for keeping it is also straightforward. The fixture works. It fills the MCG every year, it reaches a national free-to-air audience, it raises money and awareness, and the commemorative service reaches more people in one afternoon than a dozen smaller services would. Breaking it up would reduce the total attention paid to Anzac Day by the football public, not increase it.

The AFL's practical answer has been to expand around the edges rather than break the fixture: the Anzac Day Eve match, the Len Hall Tribute Game in Perth, and a broader Anzac Round in which multiple clubs play commemorative matches. Whether that is a genuine sharing or a way of preserving the monopoly while appearing to address the criticism is exactly what the argument is about.

Anzac Day Eve: Melbourne v Richmond

Since 2015, Melbourne and Richmond have played on the evening of 24 April at the MCG. The match carries its own commemorative service and has settled into the calendar as a substantial fixture, though the crowd is smaller than the following afternoon's.

Melbourne's involvement carries an additional layer. The club has an unusually long institutional history — it is one of the oldest football clubs in the world — and a correspondingly long honour board. Richmond brings one of the larger supporter bases in the competition. The pairing works commercially, which is the same logic that produced the original fixture.

The Len Hall Tribute Game and the Anzac Round

Fremantle's Anzac fixture in Perth is named for Len Hall, the last surviving Western Australian veteran of the Gallipoli campaign. It exists because Western Australian football wanted a commemorative match of its own rather than a televised one from Melbourne.

The AFL now schedules an Anzac Round in which several clubs play matches with commemorative elements, usually across the weekend closest to the date. The services at those matches are shorter than the MCG one but follow the same shape. For clubs outside Victoria this is the only route to an Anzac fixture, and it is one reason interstate supporters are generally less invested in the monopoly argument than Victorians are — they already play their own.

Is it just a normal match?

In competition terms, entirely. Four premiership points, counted on the ladder, counted in percentage, no special status. Under the 2026 structure — where the finals expanded to a top ten with a wildcard round — those points matter slightly more than they used to, because more clubs remain in contention deeper into the season.

In every other sense it is not normal. The preparation is different, the crowd is different and the form guide is close to useless. Both clubs have won this match in seasons where they were poor and lost it in seasons where they were strong. Players describe it as the game outside finals they most want to play, and that is generally visible in the first ten minutes.

Watching, attending and getting there

Tickets go to club members first, then to the MCC and AFL member reserves, then to a public sale that moves fast. The match reliably sells out, so buying at the gate is not an option.

If you are attending, allow much more time than usual. Public transport into Richmond and Jolimont is heavier than for any other home-and-away match, because a large proportion of the crowd has already been to a dawn service or the march earlier in the day. Gates open well before the ceremony and it is worth being in your seat for the start of it rather than arriving for the first bounce.

If you cannot get a ticket, the match is broadcast free-to-air nationally, and the ceremony is broadcast in full. For general guidance on following Australian sport as a visitor, the Australia section hub links the rest of these guides, and the sports index covers the other codes.

The matches that made the fixture

Three decades produces a lot of ordinary football, and the Anzac Day match has had plenty of it. What keeps the fixture's reputation up is a handful of afternoons.

The 1995 draw is the foundation. A first attempt at a new tradition that ends with the scores level, in front of a crowd nobody had forecast, is the sort of luck that cannot be planned for and it gave the fixture a story before it had a history.

The series has produced a second draw since, which for a single annual fixture is an extraordinary rate — most pairings go decades between them. Check the club records for the year, because both clubs list every result and the reporting from the day is easy to find.

Collingwood's 2026 win by 77 points is the largest margin either club has managed on the day. It is worth noting because the fixture's reputation is built on close finishes, and the record shows that reputation is only partly earned: like any other match played thirty-one times, it has produced blowouts as well as classics.

Scott Pendlebury's four medals across sixteen years is the individual record that best captures what the day does to players. Three of those came at ages when most midfielders have stopped winning best-on-ground awards in big matches.

The clubs' own war records

Both clubs, like every Victorian football club of any age, lost members in both world wars. Club honour boards from that era are still displayed at Collingwood and Essendon, and the names on them are read out or acknowledged as part of the clubs' own commemorations around the date.

This is where the monopoly argument bites hardest. Carlton, Richmond, Geelong, Melbourne, Fitzroy and the rest have equivalent boards with equivalent names. The clubs that lost members are not the two that play; they are all of them. A supporter of a club that has not played on Anzac Day in a generation can reasonably ask why their own honour board is commemorated in a much smaller setting.

The clubs that do play take the responsibility seriously — both maintain relationships with the RSL, both involve veterans in the day, and neither treats the fixture as a marketing exercise in public. That does not settle the question of who should have it, but it does mean the criticism is aimed at the AFL's scheduling rather than at the two clubs' conduct.

Why there is no AFLW Anzac Day match

The women's competition runs in the second half of the calendar year, roughly from late August into November, so 25 April falls outside the AFLW season entirely. There is no women's Anzac Day fixture and there cannot be one without moving the season.

The AFLW instead marks commemoration in other ways during its own season, and the clubs' Anzac programmes generally include their women's players even though the fixture itself is a men's match. This is a straightforward calendar problem rather than a policy one, but it is worth stating because it comes up every year.

Anzac Day across the Australian codes

Australian rules football does not have 25 April to itself. Rugby league has a long-running Anzac Day match of its own in Sydney, and it operates on a similar model: a fixed pairing, a commemorative service, and a medal awarded afterwards. Rugby union, football and the other codes all schedule matches on or around the date with services attached.

The comparison is instructive. The rugby league fixture has attracted the same criticism as the AFL one — that a national day should not be the property of two clubs — and the arguments on both sides are close to identical. If you want the background on how the league game is organised in Australia, the comparison of the two rugby codes sets out the structures, and the rugby section covers the rest.

What none of the other codes has is the scale. A crowd of 95,000 at a single home-and-away match is not something any other Australian sport produces on any date, which is both the AFL fixture's justification and the reason the argument about it will not go away.

Broadcast, money and reach

The Anzac Day match is broadcast free-to-air nationally, which is not true of every AFL fixture. That matters for the commemorative purpose: the service reaches an audience many times the size of the crowd, in every state, including places with no AFL club.

Both clubs treat the day as one of their most significant commercial dates of the season, and the AFL treats it as one of the anchor fixtures around which the rest of the schedule is built. Precise revenue and donation figures are not published in a form worth quoting here, so treat any specific dollar amount you see attached to the fixture with caution and check it against the clubs' annual reports.

The commemorative element is not purely symbolic in financial terms either — the day involves fundraising for veterans' organisations, and the RSL's continued involvement is conditional on the clubs handling the occasion appropriately. That relationship, more than any AFL rule, is what keeps the ceremony from being cut short for broadcast reasons.

Common misunderstandings

Three things get repeated that are not quite right.

The match was not planned as an annual tradition in 1995. It was staged once, it worked, and it was made annual afterwards. The retrospective framing that presents it as a tradition designed from the start is a later invention.

The Anzac Medal is not simply a best-on-ground award. The criteria explicitly include self-sacrifice, teamwork and fair play, and the judges have on occasion favoured a player whose contribution was not the most statistically obvious.

And football on Anzac Day did not begin in 1995. It goes back decades further and was shared far more widely, which is the whole basis of the argument about the current arrangement.

What a first-timer should watch for

If this is your first Anzac Day match, four things repay attention beyond the football.

The silence. A minute of genuine quiet from ninety-five thousand people in an open bowl is not a normal acoustic experience, and it is the reason many Australians attend this match rather than another one. Do not talk through it, do not applaud until the ceremony formally concludes.

The first two minutes of play. Both sides arrive at this match at a pitch of intensity that is closer to a final than a round nine fixture, and the opening passage usually shows it — heavier contact, more errors, more frees.

The bench management. With the medical substitute removed for 2026, a club that loses a player early has no replacement, so watch how the coaches ration rotations across a match that both sides badly want.

The medal presentation. It happens on the ground immediately after the siren, in front of a crowd that has mostly stayed, and it is presented with reference to the criteria rather than to the statistics. Nobody leaves early at this match, which is unusual at the MCG.

What to re-check before quoting any of this

Attendance figures from 1995 appear as both 94,824 and 94,825 depending on the source, which is a normal level of variance for records of that age. The series record changes every year the two clubs meet. The Anzac Medal list is maintained by both clubs and by the AFL, and the retrospective awards mean some older lists are incomplete.

The order of the pre-match service varies slightly year to year at the discretion of the AFL, the clubs and the RSL, so treat the sequence above as the usual shape rather than a fixed script.

The count of pre-1995 Anzac Day matches also depends on what you include. Published research puts it at about 79 across 1960 to 1994, but reserves matches, interstate fixtures and games played on the nearest weekend rather than the date itself are treated differently by different sources. Use the figure as an indication of scale rather than an exact total.

Where to go next

For the club rivalries that sit underneath this fixture, including Carlton against Collingwood and the interstate derbies, read the AFL rivalries guide. For background on the clubs themselves, the Victorian clubs guide covers Essendon, Collingwood, Melbourne and Richmond, and the non-Victorian clubs guide covers Fremantle and the rest.

For how the game itself came to exist, and why its first written rules ran to ten lines, see the origins of Australian rules football. And for the other very large fixture the MCG hosts each year in a different sport, the Boxing Day Test guide covers the summer equivalent at the same ground.