It's an honour that always drums up water cooler chat and incites comment section fracas'.
Each year's All-Australian team is designed to reward individual excellence and one's play, relative to those who are deployed in the same position.
While it's a lineup usually littered with the game's biggest names, lesser lights who chart a path to a blazer each year make for some of the best stories.
Who are a few doing just that, with this season now beyond its halfway junction? Take a look!
Billy Frampton
Don't look now, but one of the competition's most maligned figures is very quietly having a career year.
After the most misunderstood Grand Final performance of all time, the AFL public has made an unfortunate habit of treating the South Australian to ironic praise, but in season 2026, the irony is waning, and fast.
In a backline befallen by the absences of generals Jeremy Howe and Darcy Moore for much of this season, Frampton has come into his own. The 29-year-old boasts the most spoils in the league, the fifth-most one percenters, is inside the top 10 for intercept marks and inside the top 20 for total intercept possessions. He's become a brick wall, and his ball use has improved out of sight too, with his disposal efficiency now 11th in the code.
Frampton's contested one-on-one loss percentage is comparable (1 per cent worse) than that of Harris Andrews - a man viewed as the league's best key defender, and a man with whom he shares an obvious history.
The “Frampchise” is coming for his first blazer, whether the landscape is ready for it or not.
