In 1928, the VFL competition consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, with no "reserves", although any of the 18 players who had left the playing field for any reason could later resume their place on the field at any time during the match. Teams played each other in a home-and-away season of 18 rounds; matches 12 to 18 were the "home-and-way reverse" of matches 1 to 7. Once the 18 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1928 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the amended "Argus system".
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4
Round 5
Round 6
Round 7
Round 8
Round 9
Round 10
Round 11
Round 12
Round 13
Round 14
Round 15
Round 16
Round 17
Round 18
Ladder
Finals
All of the 1928 finals were played at the MCG so the home team in the Semi Finals and Preliminary Final is purely the higher ranked team from the ladder but in the Grand Final the home team was the team that won the Preliminary Final.
Semi finals
Grand final
defeated Richmond 13.18 to 9.9, in front of a crowd of 50,026 people..
The seconds premiership was won by for the third consecutive year. Carlton 18.18 defeated 14.11 in the Final, played as a stand-alone game on Thursday 27 September at the Melbourne Cricket Ground before a crowd of 8,000. Carlton received permanent possession of the seconds premiership trophy, the Rosen Cup, as the first team to win it three times.
One of the most unusual games was played at Corio Oval in round 6, between Fitzroy and Geelong. The game finished with Fitzroy scoring 2.27 : they hit the post five times, and only scored their second goal in time on of the fourth quarter. With 25 more behinds than goals, this remains the least accurate performance from any team by this metric. Geelong, on the other hand, scored 19.8, giving them two fewer scoring shots than the Maroons, but they won by 83 points. As of 2020, this remains the record winning margin for a team with fewer scoring shots than their opponent.
In the round 7 match between Richmond and Geelong, played under atrocious weather conditions on a slushy, wet Punt Road Oval, Richmond players wore fingerless gloves to help them control the slippery football.
In round 13, Collingwood finished the match with only sixteen players on the field.
In Round 17, lodged an official protest against the result of its one-point loss against, arguing that Bert Smedley's winning goal was kicked about seven seconds after the final bell had rung. The timekeepers agreed that the goal had been scored after the bell, but the protest was dismissed when the league ruled that the bell was not considered to have been rung until it was heard by the umpire.
The Second Semi-Final match between Collingwood and Melbourne finished in a draw, the first of eight draws in the history of VFL/AFL finals. A full replay was staged the following week, which was won by Collingwood. The draw meant that Richmond, who had won the First Semi-Final, endured a second consecutive bye week before the Final.
