The 2023 AFL season will go down as one of the all-time greatest years of footy seen in our code, with countless high-profile storylines generated on the field and off the field.
On the field, we saw controversy, comebacks, clutch moments, big games and maybe the greatest Grand Final ever.
Off the field we saw drama, sackings, major acquisitions and a Brownlow Medal count out of a fantasy novel.
With endless headlines to pick from, see below what we picked as the top 10 AFL stories of the 2023 calendar year.
1. Fly's Pies make history
The romance of this premiership victory is almost unmatched in AFL history.
Craig McRae himself could top this list with his galvanising impact and magnetic character on display all season long.
No one has experienced a Grand Final day quite as special as Collingwood's coach, beginning with the birth of his daughter, the aptly-named Maggie, and ending in yet another close-game victory to secure Collingwood's 16th flag, tying Essendon and Carlton atop the all-time ledger.
Bobby Hill's Norm Smith winning performance is also its own story, given the circumstances leading to his year at Collingwood, fighting cancer before rising to become one of the games most electric small forwards in just one season with at the Pies.
The Daicos brothers continuing Peter's premiership legacy of 1990, with Nick playing a near best-on-ground Grand Final in his second game back from injury also steals much of the show.
So too Darcy Moore being handed the premiership cup by his father, another former Pies skipper, Peter.
But the game itself, littered with acrobatic and skilfull highlights from the top shelf, mark and goal-of-the-year contenders, momentum swings throughout, clutch set shots and moments of leadership, culminating in one of the best finishes you'll ever see, raises the moment emphatically.
It may have been the greatest display of Aussie-rules football in the AFL era if not the history of the sport, up there with the Grand Finals of 1970 and 1989 and in one of the most exciting years of AFL footy, it lands clearly as the top story of 2023.
