Background
It was Hawthorn's sixth successive Grand Final appearance, while Melbourne were competing in its first since winning the 1964 VFL Grand Final.
At the conclusion of the home and away season, Hawthorn had finished first on the VFL ladder with 19 wins and 3 losses. Melbourne had finished fifth with 13 wins and 9 losses. In the two meetings between the teams in the regular season, Melbourne defeated Hawthorn by 21 points in round 7, while the Hawks beat the Demons by 69 points in round 17.
In the finals series leading up to the Grand Final, Melbourne defeated West Coast by just two points in the Elimination Final, then defeated Collingwood by 13 points in the First Semi-Final and Carlton by 22 points in the Preliminary Final. Hawthorn had a much easier finals run, winning the Second Semi-Final over Carlton by 21 points to advance straight to the Grand Final, thus having played only one game in the four weeks preceding the Grand Final.
Read more about this topic: 1988 VFL Grand Final
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)