The All-Australian Team is an all star team of Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including interchange players and a coach, of the best performed during the season.
As no other country could assemble an Australian rules team of the same quality, the All-Australian team never plays a game. Although the Australian international rules team was once mainly composed of All-Australians, the team for the annual International Rules Series is currently selected according to the quite different requirements of International rules football.
Sporting Life magazine invented the concept of an All-Australian Team in 1947. A squad was selected from players in various leagues in October each year by a panel chosen by the magazine. In 1953, immediately after the Australian Football Carnival, which was held in Adelaide on that occasion, an official All-Australian team was selected by representatives of the various state and territorial teams. This tradition continued until the 1988 carnival.
Concurrently, from 1982, the Victorian Football League (VFL) began to announce its own team of the year. In 1991, following the VFL's conversion to a national competition and its renaming as the Australian Football League (AFL), the two concepts were merged.
Since 1999, the All-Australian coach is the coach of the premiership-winning side that year.
On June 5, 2007 the AFL announced that it will alter the format of the announcement of the All-Australian team in the future. Ongoing from 2007 the All-Australian selection committee will provide the 40 leading players of the year in their playing positions at the conclusion of the home and away season before announcing the final 22 at a later date during the All Australian Presentation Dinner. Of the 40 leading players for that year provided the leading 12 defenders will be nominated with six to be chosen in the final team, the leading 12 forwards will be nominated with six to be chosen in the final team, and the leading 16 ruckmen and midfielders will be nominated with six to be chosen in the final team. The four interchange players to come from the remaining players of this group of 40. The current All-Australian selection panel is Rod Austin, Kevin Bartlett, Andrew Demetriou, Gerard Healy, Neil Kerley, Chris Mainwaring (recently deceased), Robert Walls and Wayne Jackson (Non-voting chairman).
