2016 SANFL season

2016 SANFL season
Teams10
PremiersSturt
14th premiership
Minor premiersWoodville-West Torrens
6th minor premiership
Magarey MedallistZane Kirkwood
Sturt (24 votes)
Ken Farmer MedallistBrett Eddy
South Adelaide (68 goals)
Attendance
Matches played96
Total attendance279,699 (2,914 per match)
Highest30,213 (Grand Final, Woodville-West Torrens vs Sturt)
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The 2016 South Australian National Football League season (officially the SANFL IGA League) was the 137th season of the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) Australian rules football competition.

Two key new rules to be introduced for the 2016 season are:[1]

  • Interchange rotations to be restricted to a total of fifty per team per game.
  • A free kick to be awarded against a player who kicks or handpasses the ball if it goes out of bounds without being touched by another player.

Both rules were more aggressive variants of similar rule changes later made in the AFL in 2016: the AFL limited interchanges to ninety per game, and adopted a stricter interpretation of deliberate out of bounds without automatically applying it to all untouched disposals out of bounds.

The season commenced on 24 March and concluded with the Grand Final on 25 September. Sturt won their 14th premiership and first in 14 years, defeating minor premiers Woodville-West Torrens by 27 points in the Grand Final at Adelaide Oval.

  1. ^ Alex Malcolm (8 October 2015). "SANFL's bold new out of bounds rule and 50 rotations per game". Australian Football League. Retrieved 18 February 2016.