Teal Cup (1953–1976), Australian Football National Championships (1977–1995), AFL Under-18 National Championship (1996-2020), AFL U19 National Championships (2021)
The AFL National Championships is an annual Australian national underage Australian rules football tournament run by the Australian Football League (AFL). Along with the Talent League, it forms one of the main junior pathways to the fully professional national club competition. Since 2017 it has been run as two competitions - an AFL National Under-18 Boys for the AFL and AFL National Championships – U18 Girls for the AFL Women's. The current format gives national draft recruiters a chance to witness the most talented underage players from around the country without requiring them to relocate to Melbourne and play with a Talent League club.
The state representative division is contested in a hybrid format. The best Under-19 players from AFL club junior academies combine to form an 'Allies' team to contest Division 1 against representative teams from 3 of the traditional powerhouse football states of Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia. With a lack of interstate representative football at senior level since 1999, the National Championships were one of the few opportunities for players to play for their state or territory. With the shift towards academies, few of the states and territories are represented, though the Tasmania Devils Academy and Northern Territory Academy field standalone Under 16 boys sides and Queensland fields girls sides in all age levels. State and club representatives typically share the senior team's guernsey (with the exception of Victorian teams, which play in variations of the state team guernsey—Vic Metro has a light blue Big V insignia, while Vic Country plays in a reverse white with navy Big V).
History
Before the current competition the main underage competition was schools based. The Australian Schoolboys Championship (also known as the Australian Schoolboys National Football Carnival or ASSNFC) run by the Australian Schools Sports Council (ASSC) ran from 1923. By 1925 there were teams in every Australian state. However, in of Queensland and New South Wales as other football codes, particularly rugby league and rugby union took increasing hold in public and private schools respectively most juniors there had no other choice but to play for a club. New South Wales in particular for many years could send strong enough Public Schools Amateur Athletic Association sides without including players from the Australian Capital Territory. While Queensland had sufficient numbers of schoolboys playing the game to regularly send sides, it experienced no success and league administrators and local schoolteachers there struggled for recognition as Queensland was increasingly seen as rugby territory.
The Australian National Football Council saw the need for a competition to fill this gap and Bruce Andrew, its Queensland based field officer is credited directly with its establishment securing funding, organising team travel and standardising rules. A trophy donated by the Teal family of Queensland and a new competition to be known as the Teal Cup would allow junior representatives from the two states to challenge each other. The first match was held in Brisbane, Queensland in 1953. From 1963 it became an annual contest.
The Australian Capital Territory was the first other side to enter in 1973. With the addition of teams from each Australian state and mainland territory in 1976, the tournament was rebranded as the National Championships and rotated between host cities. The championships were split into two divisions with the strongest states including Victoria (later split into two sides: Vic Metro and Vic Country) comprising Division 1. Papua New Guinea was the first other country to field a team in 1979.
In the absence of a national league, and less regular senior competition, it grew into one of the most important competitions in the country. Early on it was an Under-17 competition, however the age limit has been progressively increased and separate junior championships added for Under-15 level (commencing as the Shell Cup, now the AFL National Development Championships) from the 1970s onwards. It was a major talent pathway for underage players outside Victoria to the VFL.
As part of the AFL Commission's role as national governing body, the Victorian TAC Cup competition was restructured in 1992 to become the primary pathway to the AFL. As a result, representative development sides from NSW/ACT and Tasmania for a time have played in that competition instead.
In 1996 the AFL Commission and the Australian Schools Sports Council (ASSC) formed the Under-16 National Championships as a joint initiative, forming a national junior competition. As part of this restructuring, the AFL lifted the Teal Cup age limit from under 17 to under 18 to form a pathway transition from national junior to senior development. It also resulted in national recognition by the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) similar to that achieved by Football Federation Australia with the All-Australian underage teams as the AFL Academy touring Ireland to play International Rules football.
In later years, especially with the discontinuation of the AIS elite high-performance partnership and accelerated growth of the sport outside Victoria, the National Championships regained status as a primary AFL recruitment pathway.
In 2017 the AFL again restructured the competition, replacing division 2 with an Under-19 Academy Series. Instead of state representative teams, this new division would feature squads formed from the 4 Queensland and NSW AFL clubs' academies in addition to Northern Territory and Tasmania state teams.
In 2021 the entire competition was changed to under-19s (the competition has previously operated under-17s and under-18s competitions).
Winners and awards
Individual awards
The Larke Medal is awarded to the best player in Division 1 of the competition. It is named in honour of a junior footballer, Michael Larke, who was killed in a bus crash while attending a trial match for New South Wales. The Hunter Harrison Medal is awarded to the best player in Division 2 and is named in honour of a former president and life member of the Northern Territory Football League, Hunter Harrison, who played a major role in the development of the AFL Youth Championships. Each tournament, an underage All-Australian team is named; an MVP is also named for each team.
Since 2017, the AFL has replaced state and territory representative teams with an academy division consisting of its QLD and NSW AFL Club sides: GWS Giants, Brisbane Lions, Gold Coast Suns and Sydney Swans. The following sides still contest the U16 championships but not the U18 championships:
/ New South Wales/Australian Capital Territory (New South Wales/Australian Capital Territory)
↑"Last chance for bottom teams". The Canberra Times. Vol.47, no.13,456. 8 June 1973. p.19. Retrieved 21 December 2021– via Trove.
↑"Qld seeks junior rules game". The Canberra Times. Vol.44, no.12,494. 16 December 1969. p.23. Retrieved 21 December 2021– via Trove.
↑"AFL agrees to expand under-18 horizons". The Canberra Times. Vol.71, no.22, 054. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 4 September 1995. p.24. Retrieved 10 April 2024– via National Library of Australia.
Lovett, Michael, ed. (2005). AFL Record Guide to Season 2005. Australian Football League Publishing/Geoff Slattery Publishing Pty Limited. p.764. ISBN0-9580300-6-5.
2026 AFL National Championships
