Find Out the Latest AFL Results and See Who Made the Finals Cut

The rain was just starting to mist against my office window when I opened my laptop this morning, the gray Melbourne skyline perfectly matching my mood after last night’s finals. My coffee steamed beside me as I clicked through the headlines, trying to make sense of what had happened to my team. You know that feeling when you’ve followed a squad all season, watched them struggle and triumph, only to see them fall at the final hurdle? That was me today, scrolling through the AFL website to find out the latest AFL results and see who made the finals cut while my own team’s name was conspicuously absent from the list.

I remember watching the game last night, the tension so thick you could slice it with a knife. My son, barely twelve, sat beside me with wide eyes, clutching his own footy like it was a talisman. “They’ll come back, Dad,” he’d said, full of that innocent faith kids have. But they didn’t. The final siren echoed through our living room, and the silence that followed was heavier than any defeat I’d felt in years. It’s funny how sports can mirror life sometimes—the brutal honesty of the scoreboard, the way victory and loss are recorded in cold, hard numbers. According to the official stats, the margin was 28 points, a gap that felt like miles on that rain-slicked field.

As I dug deeper into the post-match analysis, my mind drifted to something I’d read recently, a piece about young athletes in another sport halfway across the world. The words stuck with me because they felt so relevant to what I was feeling now: “Tandaan natin na 16 years old lang ang mga players. Habang sila ay binabatikos, hawak nila rosaryo bago lumaban…. Lumaban sila para sa Bayan. NO EXCUSES, we lost. A lot of work needs to be done to get back up.” Though this wasn’t about AFL, the sentiment hit home. These young players, barely out of school, facing criticism while holding rosaries before battle, fighting for something greater than themselves—it reminded me of our boys out there last night. The pressure they must feel, the weight of expectation from thousands of fans like me, it’s enormous. And yet, like those young athletes, they offered no excuses, just a quiet acknowledgment that there’s work to be done.

I’ve been following AFL for over twenty years now, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that defeat often teaches you more than victory. Last season, when my team scraped into the finals by just 3.6 percentage points, the euphoria was electric. This year, missing out by what the analysts say was roughly two wins’ worth of ladder points, the disappointment cuts deeper. But it’s in these moments that character is built, both for the players and for us, the fans. I think back to 2017, when the Tigers clawed their way from ninth to premiers in one miraculous season—proof that today’s loss is just a stepping stone, not a tombstone.

The truth is, I’m biased. I’ll always bleed my team’s colors, even when they break my heart. There’s a rawness to sport that you don’t get anywhere else—the way a single bounce of the oval ball can change everything, how a mark taken in the dying seconds can become legend. Last night, I saw players with tears in their eyes as they walked off the ground, and it struck me how much this means to them. They’re not just athletes; they’re kids who’ve dreamed of this since they could walk, now facing the harsh reality that dreams don’t always come true on the first try. But here’s the thing about AFL—the season is mercilessly long for a reason. With 23 home-and-away rounds, there’s always a chance to learn, to adapt, to come back stronger.

As I finally closed my laptop, the rain had eased into a gentle drizzle, and the sun was trying to break through the clouds. My son wandered in, still in his pajamas, and asked if we could kick the footy around in the yard later. “Of course,” I told him, because that’s what this is all about—the love of the game, the resilience it teaches us. Sure, I’m disappointed today, but I’ll be back next season, yelling at the TV, living and dying with every goal and behind. Because while it’s crucial to find out the latest AFL results and see who made the finals cut, what really matters is the story behind those numbers—the sweat, the prayers, the unyielding spirit that defines this beautiful, brutal sport. And who knows? Maybe next year, it’ll be our turn to hold the cup.