1942 VFL Season - Premiership Season

Premiership Season

In 1942, the VFL competition consisted of eleven teams of 18 on-the-field players each, plus one substitute player, known as the 19th man. A player could be substituted for any reason; however, once substituted, a player could not return to the field of play under any circumstances.

Teams played each other in a home-and-away season of 16 rounds.

The determination of the 1942 season's fixtures was complicated by the fact that the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the Lake Oval, the Western Oval, and the Junction Oval had all been appropriated for military use, resulting in Melbourne sharing the Punt Road Oval with Richmond as their home ground, and South Melbourne sharing Princes Park with Carlton as their home ground. As a result of this, each week's fixture through the first eleven weeks of the season was set only on the previous Wednesday, rather than being pre-determined at the start of the season. The last five rounds were the reverse-fixtures of Rounds 1 to 5.

During the first eleven rounds, each team played each other once and had one bye. The remaining five rounds (Rounds 12 to 16) featured the same matches as Rounds 1 to 5. This resulted in an uneven fixture in which six teams played 15 matches, and five teams played 14 matches. Teams were awarded four premiership points for each bye, so the teams with an extra bye were favoured by this draw.

Once the 16 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1942 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the "Page-McIntyre system".