25th Anniversary Nationals Select Teams

The USAFL Nationals is the complete celebration of Australian Rules in the United States. The USAFL hosts the largest single weekend of football competition it the world, including Australia. From a very small beginning in 1997 with one field and five teams it has grown to over a thousand players and coaches, five fields playing continuously footy, over 70 games across six divisions of Men’s and Women’s footy, and over 45 teams competing for the ultimate prize. It is truly a fantastic event. 

How do you choose the best players to pick a select team? Luckily, we have selected Best Players of the Tournament and the Best on Ground (BOG) of every Grand Final. 

During the 25th celebrations we unveiled four teams to represent the echelon of great play at Nationals.

On the Men’s side we start with the Men’s D1 MVP (or as you would say in Australia Best and Fairest) team. This is made up of every player that was selected as the MVP of the round robin games, as selected by the Umpires. We then had fun creating a line-up that we felt would put on a great show.

On the Women’s side the MVP team is made up of everyone Division 1 and 2 player that was selected since the Women’s game started in 2005.

Back to the Men: we created a second team made up of the Best of Ground (or BOG as we say in Australia) players from every Division 1 Grand Final. This all started in 1997 when Geoff Cann from Cincinnati was awarded this prestigious honor.

On the Women’s side the BOG team is made up of every Grand Final Best on Ground from Division 1 and 2. This first Women’s Grannie was held in 2006. Jenny Sarbacker from Atlanta/Milwaukee get the Women started with the award that year. Jen went onto win 4 MVP titles in a row from 2006 to 2009 which is a record in the USAFL (for both Men and Women).

Overall, this is an elite group of players who have given it all for their clubs at Nationals. They have the medals to prove it.