FROM bizarre jumpers to experimental rules and massive bags of goals, the pre-season cup delivered plenty of high points over its 26-year existence.
From 1988, when it took over from the old Night Series, until 2013, the pre-season cup took on several guises under different sponsors including Panasonic, Foster's, Ansett Australia, Wizard Home Loans and NAB.
Ten years on from the last official pre-season cup Grand Final, when Brisbane beat Carlton in the 2013 NAB Cup decider, we take a look back at some of the highs and lows from the competition's history.
Fev stars in the Millennium Match
Perhaps the most extraordinary part of Brendan Fevola's 12-goal haul against Collingwood on New Year's Eve 1999 is his apparent indifference to the one-off event, both then and now. A crowd of less than 20,000 turned up to the MCG on the final day of the millennium to watch an 18-year-old Fevola announce himself with a huge bag in Carlton's thumping 88-point win over the old enemy. Fevola was so disinterested that he revealed years later his pre-match routine had consisted of two McChicken burgers and two cans of bourbon and he later said: "It's the worst time ever to play a game of footy. New Year's Eve is no time for playing footy. It's for froths and mates and family."
The cranky Saints
For a club so starved of success, you'd think any piece of silverware would be a cause for celebration for St Kilda. But the memory of the club's 2004 Wizard Cup triumph has lived on not for the result but for the way the club celebrated - or more to the point, the way it didn't celebrate. Having told his players they had bigger fish to fry than a pre-season cup win, then-coach Grant Thomas and captain Lenny Hayes famously didn't even smile as they held the trophy aloft following their win over Geelong. Almost two decades later, the Saints' wait for that elusive VFL/AFL premiership continues.
The King carves up
The dominant player of his era, one of Wayne Carey's greatest (and sometimes most overlooked) performances came in the 1998 pre-season cup Grand Final. In front of more than 63,000 fans at Waverley, Carey kicked five goals - including four in the final quarter - as North Melbourne overturned a three-goal deficit at three-quarter time to beat St Kilda by 14 points. Carey also racked up 27 disposals as he and Winston Abraham ripped the Saints apart, with the Kangaroos adding the 1998 title to their 1995 pre-season cup win to go with their AFL premierships in 1996 and 1999.
West Coast wins ... but doesn't realise
The introduction of the 'next score wins' rule in 1989 led to a bizarre finish in the quarter-final between West Coast and Hawthorn, with the Eagles not realising they'd secured the victory when the winning point was scored. Two late West Coast goals saw the scores tied at 88-all at the end of normal time and play continued for what players seemingly believed was a mandated period of extra time. So when Eagle Paul Peos put through the winning point, players from both teams took up their positions for the ensuing kick-in, despite commentators declaring West Coast the victors. As the siren sounded and the Eagles belatedly celebrated, Dennis Cometti observed: "I would say, going by that reaction, that the players didn't quite know the rule."
The super goal arrives
The pre-season cup has long been the breeding ground for experimental rule changes, with the nine-point super goal one of the few that stuck. From 2003 to 2017, goals kicked from outside the 50m arc netted a team nine points, with a Super Goal marked by goal umpires raising both arms above their head. Other notable rule experimentations included a call to play on for backwards kicks, three points for a deliberate rushed behind, the last touch out-of-bounds rule and play on if the ball hit the post and bounced back into the field of play. Rules that have eventually been brought in to the AFL premiership season, like video technology and a crackdown on rushed behinds, were first trialed in the pre-season cup.
Michael Tuck and his medal
Between 1992 and 2013, the best player in the pre-season cup Grand Final was awarded the Michael Tuck Medal in honour of the Hawthorn legend. Modern greats like Gavin Wanganeen, Wayne Carey, Andrew McLeod and Robert Harvey have all taken home the medal, but arguably the most famous Tuck Medal moment came courtesy of the man himself. When awarding Brendan Fevola the medal after the 2005 Grand Final, Tuck confidently told the 43,000 fans at Docklands Stadium that the Carlton forward had won "the Norm Smith Medal", an unfortunate faux pas that the Hawks great has been reminded of ever since.
Waverley rides the wave
The pre-season cup was undoubtedly at its peak during the 1990s, when record crowds jammed into the old Waverley Park for a taste of footy early in the year. The biggest recorded crowd for a pre-season Grand Final was the 75,533 who watched Essendon's triumph over Richmond in 1993 - the first of the Bombers' two premierships that year - while the four Grand Finals between 1996 and 1999 had an average crowd of 67,333. But the last-ever pre-season cup Grand Final in 2013 attracted less than 25,000 to Docklands Stadium, reflecting the waning interest in the competition.
Footy goes global
Long before the short-lived China experiment and St Kilda's brief incursion into New Zealand, the pre-season cup was a chance for Australia's game to spread its wings. Having long played post-season games in places like the UK (remember the infamous Battle of Britain in 1987?), Canada and even Japan, the game tried its luck in South Africa, New Zealand, the US and Abu Dhabi via the pre-season competition in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The game's push into new regions continues to this day, albeit at grassroots level, while those in the big leagues remain on home soil.
Experimental jumpers
Not only did the League shake things up with the rules in the pre-season cup, the clubs did as well with guernseys that varied from the bold to the downright offensive. Hawthorn was one of the chief culprits in this regard, from the chequerboard look of 1995 to its t-shirt style look in the early 2000s (which Geelong later followed in the old NAB Challenge) while West Coast's burnt orange look in the early 2000s was another low point. Scroll down for some more highs and lows of pre-season jumpers.
