The 1979 VFL season was the 83rd season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 31 March until 29 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top five clubs.
The season saw the beginning of the league's expansion into the interstate and Sunday television markets, with two Sunday matches played in Sydney, New South Wales.
Despite being formally a part of Round 3, the Essendon vs Carlton match was played as a stand-alone match on the Saturday before Round 1, and was therefore the opening match of the season.
In the ANZAC Day clash at VFL Park, Hawthorn kicked their highest score against South Melbourne. It was also at the time the highest score in a match that South Melbourne had conceded, the previous highest being 28.17 (185) by North Melbourne in Round 12, 1974.
At Victoria Park, Collingwood broke several records in their win against St Kilda, kicking their highest-ever score in a match – 31.21 (207), which they would top the following year against the same team – and also broke a 60-year-old League record in terms of greatest winning margin (178 points), previously held by South Melbourne, who beat St Kilda by 171 points back in Round 12, 1919.
Collingwood's new record was broken only three months later in Round 17, when Fitzroy defeated Melbourne by 190 points, a record which has yet to be broken.
Fitzroy's score of 36.22 (238) in the same game also set the record for highest score in a VFL/AFL game. This beat the record set by Footscray in the 1978 VFL season by twenty-five points, and remained the record until 1992.
Fitzroy made the finals for the first time since 1960, ending a nineteen-year finals drought.
The reserves premiership, known as the Commodore Cup, was won by North Melbourne. North Melbourne 13.14 (92) defeated Collingwood 9.13 (67) in the grand final, held as a stand-alone night match at VFL Park on Friday, 28 September, before a crowd of 6,047.[1]
