1996 SANFL Grand Final | ||||||||||||||||
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Date | Sunday 6 October 1996 | |||||||||||||||
Stadium | Football Park | |||||||||||||||
Attendance | 46,120 | |||||||||||||||
Umpires | Richard Williams, Michael Avon, and Troy Burton | |||||||||||||||
Coin toss won by | Central District | |||||||||||||||
Kicked toward | North End | |||||||||||||||
Accolades | ||||||||||||||||
Best on Ground | David Brown | |||||||||||||||
Broadcast in Australia | ||||||||||||||||
Network | ABC | |||||||||||||||
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The 1996 South Australian National Football League (SANFL) Grand Final saw the Port Adelaide Magpies defeat the Central District Bulldogs by 36 points. The match was played on Sunday 6 October 1996 at Football Park in front of a crowd of 46,120. [1] As of the 2020 SANFL Grand Final, this is the highest attendance for an SANFL Grand Final since the first year of the Adelaide Crows in the AFL (1991).
This was Port Adelaide's 34th premiership, third premiership in a row, and seventh in nine years. Port would also go on to win in 1998 and 1999.
Port had also beaten Central District in the 1995 Grand Final. Thirteen Port players from the 1995 grand final also played in the 1996 grand final. For Central District, 12 players played in both.
Central District entered the Grand Final as favourite to win as they were minor premiers (first on the ladder prior to the finals) and had beaten Port on all four occasions that the teams had met in 1996 prior to the grand final.